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THE ONE WAY 



By 

Jane Revere Burke 



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THE ONE WAY 



THE ONE WAY 

By 
Jane Revere Burke 



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New York 
Privately Printed 

MCMXXl 



■#£", 



■ CI.A653609 



The One Way 



Copyright, 1021, by Jane R. Burke 
Printed in the United States of America 

E-V 



JAN 21 '22 



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Preliminary Note 



THE manuscript from which this book has been 
printed came into my hands for examination 
apparently by chance. It seemed to me not 
of exceptional importance as a spiritist document, but 
of decided interest as a religious document. That is 
to say, I thought the story of the process by which 
automatic writing is done, though interesting and im- 
portant as an introduction to what follows it, had been 
more fully and persuasively told in other books, and 
that in this one there was little except the quality of the 
communicated discourse itself to make a reader think it 
came from anywhere else than out of the writer's own 
head. But I thought the substance of the discourses 
which make up most of the book was valuable and helpful. 

Failing to find a publisher disposed to publish it, I con- 
cluded, with the author's consent, to have it put into 
type for more or less private distribution. 

The author, Mrs. Burke, is a lady well known to many 
people, of admirable character and unquestioned veracity 
and integrity. 

I have found some of the automatic books both inter- 
esting and edifying, and for that reason am the more will- 
ing to assist in bringing this one to print. It is very 
slightly edited, books of this derivation being, I think, 
better adapted for examination and the exercise of judg- 
ment on their validity, when their seeming imperfections 
and digressions are left in them. The discourses in this 
book are given as coming from the late William James. 



vi Preliminary Note 

They are printed without consultation with any member 
of Doctor James's family. That seemed the most con- 
siderate way to do. If they came out of the invisible 
world in which those whom we call "dead" continue their 
activities, they are not subject to the same control that 
has charge of what Doctor James wrote while still, as we 
say, "alive." Whether they did so come is a matter for 
individual judgment, the substance of the discourses being, 
I should say, the main basis of opinion. 

As evidence that Doctor James, and not Mrs. Burke, 
was the real author of the discourses said to be communi- 
cated, passages were written in alleged Greek and other 
passages in alleged Russian. These passages, and the 
mention of them, have been omitted partly because it 
has not been possible as yet to have them studied, and 
partly because the thing of real moment seemed the sub- 
stance of the discourses. 

Thirty-seven years ago, in a letter written in 1884 to 
Thomas Davison, Doctor James said: 

I confess I rather despair of any popular religion of a philo- 
sophic character, and I sometimes find myself wondering whether 
there can be any popular religion raised on the ruins of the old 
Christianity without the presence of that element which in the 
past has presided over the origin of all religions — namely, a belief 
in new physical facts and possibilities. Abstract considerations 
about the soul and the reality of a moral order will not do in a 
year what the glimpse into a world of new phenomenal possi- 
bilities enveloping those of the present life, afforded by an ex- 
tension of our insight into the order of nature, would do in an in- 
stant? Are the much-despised "Spiritualism" and the "Society 
for Psychical Research" to be chosen instruments for a new era 
of faith ? It would surely be strange if they were; but if they 
are not, I see no other agency that can do the work. 

Something of what he came to think about automatic 



Preliminary Note vii 

writing appears in the following extract from an article 
he wrote for the American Magazine in 1909, the year 
before he died. (The italics are his) : 

The first automatic writing I ever saw was forty years ago. 
I unhesitatingly thought of it as deceit, although it contained 
vague elements of supernormal knowledge. Since then I have 
come to see in automatic writing one example of a department 
of human activity as vast as it is enigmatic. Every sort of per- 
son is liable to it, or to something equivalent to it, and whoever 
encourages it in himself finds himself personating some one else, 
either signing what he writes by a fictitious name, or spelling 
out, by ouija board or table tips, messages from the departed. 
Our subconscious region seems, as a rule, to be dominated either 
by a crazy "will to make-believe," or by some curious external 
force impelling us to personation. The first difference between 
the psychical researcher and the inexpert person is that the 
former realizes the commonness and typicality of the phenome- 
non here, while the latter, less informed, thinks it so rare as to 
be unworthy of attention. / wish to go on record for the common- 
ness. 

The next thing I wish to go on record for is the presence, in the 
midst of all the humbug, of really supernormal knowledge. By 
this I mean knowledge that cannot be traced to the ordinary 
sources of information — the senses, namely, of the automatist. 

Hardly, as yet, has the surface of the facts called "psychic" 
begun to be scratched for scientific purposes. It is through 
following these facts, I am persuaded, that the greatest scientific 
conquests of the coming generation will be achieved. 

The surface has been scratched a great deal since Doc- 
tor James died and the Great War tore up the world and 
agitated the souls of men. Such automatic books as now 
abound could not but have engaged his practiced attention. 
I cannot imagine that he would have objected to having 
this one put into shape for examination. 

Edward S. Martin. 



Author's Foreword 



NOTHING would induce me to have anything to 
do with this book if I didn't hope that through 
it some people might find God; not through 
some new channel, of spiritualism, but through the one 
old channel of Jesus Christ, the Way. I feel very sure that 
if it were not for the particular mood of the world to-day 
I might have written this book exactly as I have, but 
without realizing that it was being done by automatic 
writing — simply believing that I was inspired. Of myself 
alone I could never have written a book; the manual 
labor of ordinary writing is to me so irksome that I should 
never have undertaken it, much less put it through. 

I would not have anyone think that I believe that 
spiritualism should be substituted for the revelation of 
the Bible. I believe, with St. Paul, that Christ is the final 
revelation. It seems to me wholly compatible with what 
we know of our Heavenly Father, who is Love, that He 
should be willing to permit, especially at this time, when 
such hosts of young people have passed over, a new con- 
sciousness of the unseen world, to His foolish children 
whose hearts have become blinded through materialism. 
I believe that the spiritual way is the only right way. I 
have come to believe that automatic writing can be a 
spiritual way. I believe that anyone who is resorting to 
spiritualism or spiritism for curiosity or idleness, is com- 
mitting sin. 

When I had been writing about a month, Mr. James 
wrote the following: 

ix 



x Author's Foreword 

You know that the language you and I use is the thought 
language, and you perceive the thought before the pencil gets 
it down. I was appointed, as I told you before, to work with 
you for months before you began to write; I stood by your side 
as an earthly friend might have done, and helped you; you were 
in a very open state of mind — we call it fluid — through prayer, 
and your desire to help your child; I was able to get at your 
mind. 1 Now, what is called possession by a devil, is a similar 
thing; a human being through evil thoughts or deeds opens his 
mind to some evil man or spirit, and does it over and over again 
until the evil spirit possesses him. The reasons that you do not 
stand in danger of my obtaining undue control over you are 
threefold. God is protecting you by your desire, your husband's 
present work is to protect you, and I do not want to obtain 
undue control. It would be deterrent, and I don't stand for that 
purpose. . . . 

I have never liked to think of my dear ones who have 
passed through death, as being constantly about me. 
That has seemed to me a chaining them to our little life, 
which I find wholly repugnant. Difficult as it is for us 
with our present limitations to take in that there is no 
time in Eternity, it is yet a thought that has long been 

1 On July 6th, W. J. wrote the following in answer to my question 
{"Why do I know what the pencil is going to write?"): "Because you 
can hear the thought language. Also I have been working with you half 
the winter." 

{"How did you come to work with me?") 

"Do you remember that day you were with Q. in the back room, and 
said that you thought God might be preparing you for some special 
work ? " 

{"Yes.") 

"Well, you opened a mental door then and God sent me to work with 
you and help sustain you in the strain of your son's illness, and I was 
constantly at hand, and helped." 

(" You understand that I work only in God's service and to do His holy 
will?") 

"Yes, my dear woman, I wouldn't have anything to do with you if 
you were not heart and soul given over to His holy service." 



Author's Foreword xi 

very familiar to us. In our earthly life we occasionally 
touch this law of Eternity, when under some great stress 
a moment is lengthened into hours, or days or months 
seem but as a passing instant. 

Still more impossible to take in is the practical annihil- 
ation of space. Yet we know in a very actual, a very 
real, if not exactly material way, that the wireless message 
does annihilate space. Still more in those instances of a 
telepathic call from one person living on earth to another 
person far away, yet living on earth — of which many 
incontrovertible instances are extant. 

In the light of this thought it seems easy to understand 
that those of our dear ones who are gone before, while 
habitually at work doing God's will far away, might at 
need be instantly by our sides. 

The old prayer against "evil thoughts that may assault 
and hurt our souls," what is that but the thought language 
of heaven perverted and used by evil spirits. St. Paul 
says, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of 
the spiritual wickedness of this world." 

There is so much that I do not know that I am willing 
to concede that it is possible — though I don't believe it — 
that men have seen with their fleshly eyes ghosts — the 
spirits of the departed. It seems to me much greater to 
have perceived with the spirit the nearness of the departed, 
with an absolute certainty which no gainsaying is able to 
controvert. There is no power on earth that could per- 
suade me against my certainty that on a certain morning 
my husband came and spoke to me the one word of com- 
fort that was essential to my being able to go on and keep 
my balance. I saw no form with my eyes, I heard no 
word, yet I know that his spirit spoke to my spirit, and 



xii Author's Foreword 

in the strength of that certainty I traveled many months 
and days. I have had, during a period of many years, a 
few similar experiences. I grew to realize that they were 
governed by one law. I never perceived my husband's 
nearness or received his directions except when I was 
living to the highest that I knew — very close to God. 

The experience of automatic writing is an absolutely 
extraordinary one. No one who has been through it can 
question the certainty of a control outside themselves. 
Yet I have become convinced that the control (I have to 
use this term, though I don't like it) never touches the 
pencil. I feel sure that the contact between the amanuen- 
sis and the control can be wholly spiritual, and that though 
it may be only psychic it is never material. The material 
is always lower than the spiritual, and art than nature. 
Yet the finished athlete, at first endowed with his great 
bodily strength, travels through art back to nature, before 
he reaches his highest perfection. The great singer, with 
his great God-given gift, must also travel through art 
back to nature; and I believe that, correctly understood, 
the present wave of communication with the unseen world 
is but another example of traveling through art back to 
nature. I was told by Mr. James, "You have been re- 
ceiving thoughts both good and bad all through the ages." 
Now, if this is true, is it not a great step in advance to do 
it consciously, intelligently? 

One element in automatic writing that is tremendously 
convincing, to the person who receives it, is the way that 
the pencil crosses out both verbal mistakes and whole 
sentences. There are statements in this book that I would 
not dare make in my own person. Some of these are in 
complete accordance with my own personal and private 
belief or interpretation of the truth of God as I understand 



Author's Foreword xiii 

it, yet I should hesitate a long time before I published 
them on my own authority. Others are utterly beyond 
my knowledge, and I have felt great awe and question as 
I have perceived my hand writing them out, and many 
times I have feared, lest what I was writing was not true 
or was touching some profound question, that has long 
puzzled sages. I can only say that I have constantly 
stopped, and repeated: "Father, this is thy pencil. I 
am thy child. Do not let this pencil write any word that 
is contrary to thy will." If, therefore, any of my readers 
feel I have dared to tread where I should not, I can only 
say that I am but an instrument, and if I have marred the 
message in receiving it, or mangled it through the limita- 
tions of my development, I am sorry. It was not wilfully 
done. 

As I have progressed in this automatic writing I have 
become convinced that the contact between me and the 
control is a wholly spiritual one, in spite of the fact that 
when I am working at my best the contact is so strong 
that the pencil is driven like lightning, being often dug 
into the paper and almost giving me the sensation of being 
forced to write. 1 

We all know that many of our actions are automatic, 
controlled by what we term our functional brain. I am 
now convinced that this spiritual control causes my hand 
to make the pencil write. The writing of different controls 
varies greatly. 

In order to do the best work, I find it necessary to stop 



1 It will be seen from the introduction that at first I thought there was 
direct control of the pencil. 

On August 6th, my husband wrote: "I can't touch the pencil because 
we can't touch or handle those things that have no real enduring 
existence." 



xiv Author's Foreword 

very frequently, and say, "Father, this is thy pencil, I 
am thy child, I am dealing with a force that I do not 
understand, and I am relying absolutely on thee not to 
allow this pencil to write one word you do not wish to 
have written." Nevertheless, I am obliged to keep a 
very real rein on myself not to intrude my ideas. I follow 
what is written often with the very keenest interest. You 
will see that in the course of the writing I have been very 
much troubled at knowing beforehand the word or the 
thought that the pencil is going to write. When I reread 
the manuscript, to prepare it for typing, I came on long 
passages which I have no remembrance of having written. 
Since this whole subject of automatic writing is so much 
before the mind of men to-day it has seemed to me worth 
while to let my readers inside this sort of detail. I think 
that all readers of these books should realize that those 
who receive this automatic writing are liable at times to 
limit the message by placing the barrier of their own 
ignorance or doubt in the way of the control. 1 



1 (You understand how much people are questioning about automatic 
■writing — is it like this? You think to me the thought, " Your friend (mean- 
ing the one who is staying with me) and I write her name down — you give it 
into my mind in a thought. I receive it as a thought, but let it out through 
my hand and the pencil in words, saying, ' My friend, Mrs. Wilson' — do 
you get what I am asking about?") 

William James's control. "You have it exactly. I do not know the 
name of your friend. I see in your mind, as in a mirror, that you are 
thinking of one certain friend. I think a thought to you about that 
friend and you write down her name. A man who has a series of bells 
touches a given button and the bell attached to that button rings. I 
think the thought to you about your friend and you write out her name." 

(Is it not, therefore, easy for me to make a mistake in writing your 
thought into human language?) 

William James's control. "Yes and no. When you are working well, 
you put my thought into clear, correct human language. When you 
grow weary you may cloud the meaning." 



Author's Foreword xv 

In a passage which I have not published, Mr. James, in 
speaking of a certain book automatically written, said, 
"It is a fine book, with a very important message, but I 
think the message was limited because of the lack of 
spiritual development of the person who received it." 

It is essential to keep very much on the alert, for an 
interference, otherwise one might give a garbled message. 
Thus far I believe every interference I have had was by 
the same personality, and the way that she gained entrance 
was because of a state of mental vagueness on my part 
being scattered or "distrait," which, of course, was 
deterrent. 



The One Way 



Introduction 



THIS book must be its own justification — should it 
prove of value to anyone let him receive the 
message. I make no claims that will convince 
the skeptical. I myself know that I did not write it alone. 
Yet I am quite aware that my conviction that it is a 
genuine message received by means of automatic writing 
will have no weight for the general public; nevertheless, 
for those to whom it is of interest, it may be best for me 
to make a statement of how I happened to commence the 
undertaking. I have never even seen a ouija board or 
planchette. Prior to November, 1919, I only remember 
one occasion on which I ever tipped a table. About the 
year 1894, in a mixed company in a boarding house, we 
succeeded in getting some one who acknowledged to being 
bad, and then proved to be the father of a young woman, 
dressed in deep mourning, whose great agitation broke 
up the seance. This served to increase my general belief 
that if tables could really be tipped it was only done by 
evil spirits. With them I wished to have no trafficking. 

It so happened I had never read a book by William 
James — this summer I have purposely avoided doing so. 
Since The One Way was completed, two persons who have 
read the manuscript have said that it did not seem at all 
like Mr. William James. 

For me, it would rob Eternity of much of the beauty 

and joy that I anticipate, if we are to remain exactly 

what we are when we leave this world. Ten years 

of travel and adventure can change a man's whole 

3 



4 The One Way 

point of view in this world, and I feel that Mr. William 
James might have changed a great deal in ten years in 
Eternity. 

In case the language of this book seems so unlike his old 
style as to preclude the idea of his having dictated the 
book, let me explain that I am convinced that he dictates 
the idea to my mind, and he does not dictate each word 
or sentence. 

My mother, who was the most joyous Christian I have 
ever known, was also an inveterate traveler, who took the 
greatest delight in new places, and when she knew she was 
going on a journey entered into all the plans with the 
keenest zest. From her I learned to take a most intense 
interest in heaven in exactly that same spirit of a traveler. 
She read aloud to me "The Land of Darkness" and the 
"The Land of Suspense," by Mrs. Oliphant. I read by 
myself the rest of the stories of the Seen and Unseen, by 
the same author. Many years later, after the death of 
my husband, these stories were of intense interest and 
comfort to me. I devoured them, and then reread them. 
When a little later a friend gave me a little book called 
Letters from Julia, purporting to be written by a dead 
woman to a living friend, I found the idea very repulsive. 
Yet now I am inclined to believe that those stories of Mrs. 
Oliphant's were done by automatic writing. What is said 
of the extreme rapidity with which she sometimes wrote, 
favors that view. She says in her biography: "These 
stories are not like others. I can only produce them when 
they come to me." And in regard to "The Land of Sus- 
pense/' she says, "I think it came to me from them." 
Some time during the last two years, after reading some 
book which claimed to be written automatically and which 
interested me very much, I said to my son, "Well, which- 



The One Way 5 

ever of us dies first, if automatic writing is in accordance 
with God's will, we will do it." I do not remember that 
he made any rejoinder — certainly he betrayed no special 
interest. 

In November, 19 19, 1 was away from home for a couple 
of days. When I returned, my son said: "I don't know 
what you will say when you know what we did while you 
were gone. We tipped the table." I think he expected 
me to express strong disapproval. I did not either feel or 
express any disapproval. 

Shortly after that, a cousin, Miss P., was staying 
with us, who has always been very successful in tip- 
ping tables. An acquaintance happened in to supper, 
and we four tipped the table. This last lady had no 
knowledge or experience in the matter; she only half 
believed, and her curiosity was roused. When she 
left, I said I believe that there is only one right way 
to do this, and that is to use the name of Jesus Christ, 
and say that we, being sworn servants of God, will have 
nothing to do with mischievous spirits; and that if 
tipping tables is contrary to the will of God we will 
have nothing whatever to do with it. We found re- 
peatedly that when the table began tipping — and knock- 
ing clearly to say — "In the name of Jesus Christ I 
forbid any interference from mischievous spirits," stopped 
it dead. On the other hand, we found that sometimes the 
table assented very vigorously, and twice we got a rea- 
sonable communication. 

In this Introduction I have given such part of the com- 
munications I have received from my husband and son 
as seemed of general interest. My son died in April, after 
an illness of many months, during which time I knew, 
that so far as human knowledge and skill went, there was 



6 The One Way 

absolutely no hope. Near the end of May I read Private 
Dozvding, by Tudor Pole. On June 5th, while reading 
The Abolishing of Death, by Basil King, I felt that I could 
try to write. I sat down in the dark, holding the pencil 
so lightly that I scarcely touched it, and holding my arm 
free above the table, I got in the faintest writing, and 
with a great sense of effort, "Mother, mother. Mother, 
I love you. I have been with God all the time. Father 
loves you every minute of the time." Then, for the first 
time, the pencil wrote my name — which has since then 
become the way my husband always addresses me — "J — — , 
you are to teach — God will show you. God has a plan. 
Be content." 

I wish it were possible to describe the peace that that 
"Be content" brought me. 

June 6th. Taken in the dark. "Mother — Mother, I 
am Phil." 

{Can I ask a question?) 1 

"Yes." 

{Have you been waiting to try and get me?) 

"No." 

{Could you call me?) 

"No, not yet. Be content. Good night." (Obviously 
this might be just my subconscious mind directing my 
pencil, but when one has experienced the sensation of the 
pencil being controlled, that idea gives no explanation of 
the peculiar manner of writing. It is not my intention to 
argue or try to convince anyone. If there is a message 
for me to deliver, all that I have to do is to give it faith- 
fully. You will see from what follows that I acknowledge 
my doubts — I give them in full, perhaps in tiresome detail, 



Throughout this book the italics denote that Mrs. Burke is speaking. 



The One Way , 7 

because there are certain persons to whom these technical 
details are important.) 

June 9th, 8.30 p.m. "Mother, Mother, I am Phil." 

(Do you understand that I only want to do God's will?) 

"Yes." 

(Would it be letter if I did not try to write?) 

"No." 

(Do I disturb you by sitting down with the -pencil?) 

"No. God bless you. Good-night." 

"J , God blss— " 

"Mother, you are no mother." 

(This last seemed puzzling. It is impossible to convey 
the sense of varying personalities.) 

June nth, 8.30 p.m. "Mother, Mother. Yes. Tom 
will pass his exams." "Mother, Mother, I am Phil. God 
blss you. Good night." 

"J , I don't want you to write." 

(Who are you?) 

"N ." (My husband's nickname incorrectly spelled.) 

(Is it because I am tired you don't want me to write?) 

"Yes." 

(Taken in semidark, I could not see the writing, but I 
could see my hand. I seem to feel or know beforehand 
what word I am going to write. It might all come from 
my subconscious mind — but the method of writing is 
queer. To-night I intentionally took control of the pencil 
and finished one letter, and then it was a good many 
seconds before the writing began again.) 

June 14th, 1.50 p.m. "Mother, Mother. Yes, yes." 

(What did father mean when he told me not to write?) 

"That you were tired. Yes. Yes." 

(Are you saying " Yes, Yes" meaning it is you?) 

"Yes. Mother, we want you to learn how to write. 



8 The One Way 

You must practise every day, then we can talk all the 
time." 

{In the name of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the World, we 
will only write according to God's will.) 

"Yes, that is understood." 

{Are you happy?) 

"Mother, Mother, God is love. Yes, yes. Get the big 
paper." (This was in reference to my thought of buying 
wall paper such as Margaret Cameron said in The Seven 
Purposes that she used.) "You are no mother — Mother, 
Mother, Mother—" 

{Did you mean to write "You are no mother?") "My — 
my Mother, Mother Mother Mother." 

"J , go out to drive now." 

(I seem to know in my mind what word is going to 
be written — that might be my subconscious mind, but 
Phil and Jay write so differently. I have laughed aloud 
with joy at the latter's characteristic tone.) 

June 15th, 7 p.m. "Mother, Mother yes yes." 

{Have you heard all the things I have been thinking in the 
garden?) 

"No." 

{Has Father?) 

"Yes." 

{Why?) 

"Because you were thinking to him." 

{If I think questions to Father, cant you read my mind?) 

"No, Mother." 

{Is it hard for you to write anything besides Mother?) 

"Yes" — very strongly written. 

(Then occurred a change of writing. It was, as I have 
since learned, an interference.) Then Mother, twelve 
times over and in much more powerful and free writing. 



The One Way 9 

This seemed to me to be just a practice of writing with my 
hand — then enormous circles made like lightning, and very 
strongly. 

{What does that mean?) 

"J°y> J°y> J°y" (written nine times). "Mother, I 
adore you. Mother, do you know I am Philip? Yes 
yes yes" — nine times. "Mother, I love you" — four times. 

(Do you like to write this way, Phil?)" Mother, I love to 
write with your hand." 

(Phil, you know I can't help doubting a little when I know 
in my mind what the pencil is going to write; explain if you 
can.) 

"Mother, I can't explain that. Mother, you must buy 
plenty of soft pencils for writing." (/ must here have taken 
control of the pencil, for he wrote — ) "Don't you write, 
Mother; it interrupts me." 

(You don't cross is or dot i's.) 

"No, I can't; Mother Mother. Yes Yes." 

(Can you write out what it is to which you write " Yes 
Yes?") (The only reply was:) 

"Mother Mother Yes, yes, yes, Mother." 

(Why does father stop me all the time?) 

"Because at present it is not good for you to write 
much." 

(Is Father there?) 

"Yes." 

(Can I ask him a question?) 

"Yes." 

(Who are you?) 

"J — — , I am your husband." 

(Does our son understand about your not wanting me to 
write?) 

"Yes." 



io The One Way 

{Will you please give me directions not only for to-night?) 

"J , you are to teach and you must get rested — 

practise your exercises and keep out of doors all that is 
possible." 

(N , of course it is very exciting to feel that you and Phil 

can write with my hand. I cant help feeling as if you were 
waiting, trying to communicate if I don't try.) 

"God has important work for you to do, and you must 
rest first." 

(How shall I know when I may write again?) 

" Mother, Mother, Mother. Father wants you to rest 
and I am so happy here I understand." 

(Do you want me not to write again till I get to ?) 

"Yes, J , not till you get to . God bless you 

and Tom. . . ." 

(Then came Joy circles.) 

(What does that mean?) 

"That means joy for all Eternity." 

(N , why do I know in my mind beforehand what the 

pencil will write?) 

"I can't explain until later. . . ." 

(God keep you, my son.) 

"Mother, God does keep me, and I am so happy, only 
I want you to be happy, too. . . . Mother, God bless you 
and Tom all the time." 

"J . . . Good night. Bless you now and always." 

After writing the above I wrote a letter to Tom, and I 
felt that my pencil was controlled, and I wrote excessively 
rapidly, but I said what I wanted to to Tom, not what 
some one else wanted; then I thought I would try to write 
down a thought that has been constantly in my mind 
lately. I began, and I wrote faster than I ever wrote in 
my life, the following: 



The One Way n 

June 15th, 7.45 p.m. "Truth, not what you consider the 
truth, or what I consider the truth, but God's eternal 
verity, has in it such inherent power that when a man 
touches it, at any point, he is overwhelmed by the strength 
of the Truth, and that is one reason why men who are 
studying Science feel unable to grasp religious truth. It 
is only that the minds of most men are so finite that they 
cannot grasp more than one small aspect of truth and that 
one atom of God's eternal truth is so overwhelmingly true 
that they feel 'I have found truth' 'this is truth,' and 
that blinds them to all sorts of other aspects of truth. 
You can put your hand before your eyes and blot out the 
widest landscape yet the landscape is there all the time, 
only you don't see it. Don't think because you have 
found one atom of truth that you have found it all, and 
don't be afraid of the Truth wherever you find it." 

{Who are you?) 

"I am not your husband but I have to get a chance to 
speak through you. My name is William James, of Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, U. S. A.; the man who thought he 
knew a lot while he was on earth, and now that he has 
learned a little he wants to tell the people on earth through 
you. But you must rest now, God bless you. You have 
got a tremendous work to do for God and his children." 

{My husband told me to go to bed and that I must rest first.) 

"Your husband is right; don't you write another page 
of automatic writing for him, or for me, until after you 

get to . You go buy about fifteen rolls of the best 

paper, wall paper at 's, on Street, pay 30 cents 

a roll for it, and don't be afraid about the money for 
that or anything else about this work, for God will provide 
the money; and now you go to bed, and God bless you." 

The sensation of this writing was intensely exciting. 



12 The One Way 

Between four and five in the morning of June 16th I woke 
with the pulses in my head beating as if they would burst. 
I have since realized that the sensations with which I 
awoke were such as have frequently been described by 
those who saw or perceived some supernatural being- I 
at once took up the pencil, which wrote: 

"J , you are too excited. I want you to go to 

sleep. Give me your hands. It is just as actual as that 
day fourteen years ago at the hospital." (This referred 
to a time when I was very ill and intensely nervous, and 
he made me go to sleep.) "Yield yourself to me. I am 
your husband. I love you with all my heart and soul. 
You are mine, and belong to me forever and ever. Now 
lie still and I will hold your hands, and God will put you 

to sleep." (When N writes God's name he pauses, 

and writes so slowly that it brings an indescribable sense 
of God's nearness, and such reverence.) 

June 16th, 9.45 a.m. (After certain directions about 

resting, I got): "J , go out of doors and enjoy God 

works alone with him." 

(Do you mean dont go to see Mrs. W. — a friend?) 

"Yes, go now quick, don't keep asking questions — do 
what I tell you. Obey. God bless you." 

June 1 6th, 7.35 p.m. "J , you cannot realize the 

importance of the work you are to do and you must be 
rested first." 

June 17th, 7.45. "J ■, you are not keeping your 

promise; don't take up the pencil unless you are in very 
great need of my help, turn to God. I will be helping all 
the time. You must be rested and don't hesitate to spend 
the money to make proper arrangements about your 
clothes for the summer. Wear white all the time and don't 
you wear crepe." 



The One Way 13 

On June 17th my husband told me that I was not keep- 
ing my promise. I did not quite realize that I had made 
a promise and that it meant I was not to touch a pencil 

with "intent of automatic writing" till I reached . 

But I now appreciate that this period of enforced quiet 
will prove of the greatest possible benefit to me — because 
through it I am realizing that the highest spiritual inter- 
pretation is the only one I can follow in this work. At 
first it seemed more than I could bear not to try to write. 
The intense sense of my husband's personality (and my 
son's) and the extraordinary change not only of writing, 
but of personality, when William James began to write, 
are all that I have as proof, and I am quite well aware 
that that is proof only to me — but to me the proof is so 
complete that I can hardly contain myself for joy. 1 As 
my husband has spoken of work of great importance and 
teaching, and as W. J. ordered me to buy so much paper, 
I naturally suppose that I am to write a book. It may 
be worth noting as an evidence of my conviction that I 
instantly obeyed W. J., a complete stranger's, direction, 
not to consider money in regard to this work, and have 
planned to spend money in a variety of ways I should 
never have dreamed it right for me to do, and to alter 
my summer arrangements, that I may be wholly untram- 
meled for the work. I obeyed my husband at once, about 
my clothes. I mean now to wear white and to discard 
crepe entirely. 

On Friday, June 18th, the story of a great tragedy was 
told me, and I was emotionally very deeply stirred, so 
that I scarcely felt as if I knew what I was doing. I knew 

1 The sense of excitement was at this time so intense that I feel that 
I could easily understand how a person might lose his mental balance over 
this automatic writing; temporarily, all the old values seem thrown out. 



14 The One Way 

I ought to go home and lie down. Instead, I went to 
choose the wall paper ordered by W. J. I could not 
decide which kind to buy. I held my shopping pencil 
lightly; in a minute it wrote, "take the grey," which I 
proceeded to do. My mind was in a turmoil; scattered, 
not concentrated. I think it is the condition referred to 
so many times in the book by M. Cameron, The Seven Pur- 
poses, as "divided purpose." It is a condition of inde- 
cision, painfully familiar to many people. 

Please note that I said "I knew" by one flash of the 
inner voice in that place where "we know," that I should 
go home — call it conscience if you prefer. I had made 
the human plan of shopping. It was interrupted, and 
though I was perfectly exhausted I carried out my own 
plan and will, partly because I had told my friend I was 
going shopping and didn't want her to observe a change 
of plan. As I was feeling terribly distressed, I felt I had 
my husband's permission to seek his help through the 
pencil. Later, when I did grow calm, I was not satisfied 
that it had been he who answered me; then the conviction 
grew that it was not his answer. 

June 20th, Sunday evening. I have felt convinced all 
day long that that message on Friday was an interference. 
I am now absolutely convinced that it was a deterrent or 
mischievous spirit. On July 22d, after two days of con- 
stant interference, I referred to this piece of manuscript 
and found that the handwriting used on June 20th was 
the same. This seems to me to point very clearly to the 
danger of getting under the power of an evil or deterrent 
personality, if in doing automatic writing one is actuated 
by curiosity or any light motive. 

June 2 1 st. That interference was good for me, as it 
made the danger so evident. 



The One Way 15 

June 19th, 1920, 1 p.m. Naturally all this has been in 
my mind at every waking minute, and I can see how wise 
was the order from my husband not to write till after I 

get to , also the direction, "Turn to God." In the 

Abolishing of Death, by Basil King, there is a chapter called 
" The New Tongue " — i.e., the language of Thought. This 
morning I said; at present I am forbidden to do the auto- 
matic writing, but I can make an experiment in thought 
language. I said to myself, if I went out in the automo- 
bile and was suddenly killed, I should presumably soon 
be able to practice — falteringly enough, no doubt, at first 
— the heavenly language, thought exchange; there would, 
however, have been no real change in my spirit; hence it 
is possible that I could try to receive consciously a thought 
now. I went to my husband's old desk and sent a thought 
message to my husband that I was ready to receive con- 
sciously a message. (I don't want to go into this thing 
and become unbalanced over it.) I know that I have as 
yet no proof for anyone else that all this does not come 
from my subconscious mind — for myself the only proof I 
have is an overwhelming sense of certainty that I have 
been in direct communication with my husband's per- 
sonality and also my son's. I then "chained my imagina- 
tion," "entered the silence." Nothing came, and I thought 
probably I am not capable yet. Suddenly I saw how I 
could make a practical use of a certain desk I have when 
writing on the rolls of wall paper. I had already so far 
perfected a plan of a table on which to write, that I had 
this morning thought of sending an exact paper pattern 

of the table to a carpenter at , so that the table 

would be ready when I reached there. In a flash I saw 
how the desk I already have could be made to serve 
splendidly, far better than the table I had planned. I 



1 6 The One Way- 

am writing this down now because if it was a message I 
want it written down. Granted that we are so made as 
to be capable of receiving these thought messages, it seems 
to me it will be a great step in advance to do so consciously. 

July 19th. "J , you did receive that thought. Of 

course you all receive thoughts both good and bad con- 
stantly from this side; to do so consciously is the greatest 
advance." 

July 4th. N in control. . . . "J , some one tried 

to interfere. J , always pray if the pencil gets silly 

and runs around." 

July 4th. (Do you hear all my thoughts or only those I 
clearly direct to you?) 

"J . I do not hear your thoughts in words. I feel 

the effects of them as they affect your spiritual life. . . ." 

(Later, after sending a clear thought.) (Can you get 
what I have told you?) 

"Yes, I do, now that you are sending the thought clear- 
ly to me." 

July 5th, 1920, 1.45 p.m. "J , don't come unless 

you need me." (N. B. — Here the writing was extremely 
small, and came apparently with great difficulty.) 

July 5th, 5 p.m. "J , trust God and don't keep 

coming unnecessarily." 

(Why?) 

"Because you must live your life with God just as be- 
fore, growing in your closeness to Him, otherwise it is idle 
use of the pencil. God bless you." 

(This I take to mean that automatic writing, unless used 
for or toward a spiritual end, is abuse of a sacred privilege. 
It is not to be used as idle gratification.) 

In the two above cases I came with mental questions 
— not for the pure joy of talking to him. 



The One Way 17 

July 5th, 8.20 p.m. (. . . you don't mind my coming just 
for joy, do you?) 

"J ... I want to write with your hand every 

second of the day. What you must not do is to come to 
me with questions that you ought to settle for yourself, in 
order that you may grow closer to God. You see, this is 
your most important growing time, and I must not inter- 
rupt your growth. . . . You do not need to be assured 
that this is I, your own husband; you know it." 

J to N . July 7th, 4.30 P.m. {Mr. James said 

the other night the doctor wouldn't come, and he came at once. 
Why was that?) 

"I don't know; he made a mistake. You see, those de- 
tails are not important." 

{Yes, but they are very confusing to us here. 'Both you 
and Phil said Tom would pass his exams, and he failed 
on three of them. 1 ) 

"Sorry we made a mistake. I think the truth is you 
shouldn't ask us specific questions of small details; they 
seem so small to us here." 

July 8th, 5.30. "J you must not doubt, for it is 

of tremendous importance that you should believe the real 
truth of this whole matter." 

{Cant you tell me something I don't know and couldn't 
write alone?) 

"J — — , I can't think why you keep asking for proof. 
You know. God bless you." 

July 9th. "J , I want to talk to you a minute. 

We have been starved for conscious intercourse. ... I 
did suggest that arrangement of the desk and you did 
understand. . . . Don't be afraid to pray" [corrected 
to believe]. 

1 Subsequently he passed them off. 



1 8 The One Way 

{Now, why did that write wrongly?) 

"You see it is not even yet quite natural for me to write 
with your hand." 

July ioth. (Do I have to decide about the stenographer and 
all those details alone?) 

July nth, 9 p.m. "J , you do have to decide that. 

That is part of your human life, and it would weaken you 
if I decided those things and it is essential that you should 
grow in your spiritual life in order to do the work to which 
God has called you." 

July 1 2th. "J — — ■. I am with you all the time when 
you need me. I too need to go away and receive God's 
strength." 

(What would happen if I called you when you were there?) 

"I should come to you because you are my appointed 
work now, and then I should go back to worship and 
renewal from the Father." 

July 13th, 7.30 a.m. (Why didn't you answer that ques- 
tion above?) 

"Because at the time [when it was asked] I had said you 
were to go to bed — and I said it not to order you, but be- 
cause it was right; and here when we know a thing to be 
right we do it, we don't dally round till we get good and 
ready." 

(Can you answer that question now?) 

I had asked him if he knew about a certain spiritual ex- 
perience I once had.) "No . . . not even a husband in- 
terferes between the Father and his child, even though 
she be his wife." 

July 13th, 7.30 A.M. (/ know nothing about literary work. 
If I were doing a book with a person here I should consult 
him. Is it wrong for me to ask William James' advice about 
a stenographer? He wrote lots of books when he lived here.) 



The One Way 19 

"No indeed, ask him by all means." 

(Is it just as easy for you to hear my questions without my 
writing them down?) 

"Yes, but I think you need to write them for the sake 
of the record." 

July 13th, 7.30 p.m. ". . . It isn't at all easy for me to 

answer questions. J , don't doubt, even though the 

pencil writes what you think yourself. If Mr. James 
finds in your mind a thought or expression that you feel 
is your own and that he feels is the right one to carry his 
meaning, he will use it." 

July 17th, 9.30 p.m. (Can deterrent spirits do things to 
our bodies, like the pain in my foot, to accomplish their de- 
terrent purposes?) 

"J , no deterrent spirit can interfere if you for- 
bid it." 

(What makes the pain in my foot, and how can I get rid 
of it?) 

"You know that God is the Source of all health and 
healing; go to Him. I can't help when the right thing is 
for you to go to Him. It is not that I don't love you, but 
you must go to Him." 

(N , if you were on earth you could help me. Even 

though I ought to go to God, you could help. I understand 
that it would not be real help if I turned to you, who are his 
child, when I should go to Him, the Source. Is it that as 
soon as I go to Him you will begin to help?) 

"J , I have already begun, but not by written 

words. It is under the same law as what Mr. James 
has been writing today; you have already the revela- 
tion of God's power of healing and you must for your 
own development work out on that. For me to tell 
you in words what you should learn by living out 



20 The One Way 

your Faith in God's healing power, would be, for me, 
a deterrent act." 1 

July 24th, 9 p.m. "J , you know that I am your 

husband; you know that you have been hearing from me. 
Don't doubt; pray. You have an important work to do. 
If I used your mode of expression I should say I am so 
proud that you have been chosen for this work, but here 
we know that there is no room for pride; it is just that 
the Father's love is working through you." 

(Is it possible for you to explain to me why I understand 
beforehand zvhat the pencil will write?) 

"But you know already; the language we use here is 
the thought language. A,nd when you empty your mind 
for me to control it, you hear my thought, and my thought 
in your mind makes your mind control the pencil. I can't 
touch the pencil. I do it through your mind. It is a very 
subtle thing; I know that it is hard for you to understand. 
You must trust. J — — ■, you know you can trust me." 

July 30th, 12.30. {How do you know when I take up the 
pencil?) 

"Why it is somewhat as you would know if Tom called 
you. If you were busy and he came in and called, you 
would answer. If I were away from you, I should come. 
Now that is human language and I have to use it because 
it is all you understand, but to us, space, as you know it, 
doesn't exist; time as you know it doesn't exist; and yet — 
the truth is, here is one of those chasms we can't bridge 
because you simply can't understand. You know height, 
depth and breadth; if I tried to explain another dimension 
you couldn't understand, and you have to accept that 
there is a lot you can't understand. You have, already 

1 " Deterrent " is used throughout the book where we should use evil 
or wrong. 



The One Way 21 

supplied you, all the data that is essential for your human 
lives. Live those to the fullest; then when you get here 
you'll be fully prepared for this life. Those who come here 
not having tried to live to the fullest that which has been 
supplied to them in their earthly life, are like maimed 
people with you." 

{Do you mean that a person without education — whose 
earthly life had been almost completely bare of opportunities, 
yet who had tried to advance all they could or been as good as 
they knew how, might, after death, be much more spiritually 
advanced than a person of great education and opportunities 
who had been less faithful in trying to do right?) 

"Exactly; the last shall be first and the first last; the 
real advancement is gauged according to integrity of in- 
tention followed by sincerity of action." 

(Do I trouble you by controlling the pencil too much?) 

"Why, you do at times. If you could only overcome 
your doubts. You do know you have been in constant 
touch with your husband. Why doubt? Pray. The 
whole world is in ferment because it does not know its 
own mind. So few people face facts. They dodge and 
misstate, and are not honest with themselves. They do 
what is wrong and then they condone and excuse. Right 
is right and wrong is wrong, and God made man in such 
a way that if he had not perverted his powers he could 
discern clearly, quickly, what is the right in each case. 
And when you know what is right, do it and do it quick. 
I know all you immediately want to bring up about the 
situations where circumstances or other people who are 
deterrent, or evil, prevent your doing the ideal right. 
God knows all your circumstances and there is a right 
thing for each one of you to do in every circumstance, 
and if you will learn how to use your God-given instincts 



22 The One Way 

and trust to them, the change in you and in the life of the 
whole world will seem nothing less than miraculous. I 
am not dreaming. I am telling you of what I know. 
The only way to do it is to get closer to the heart of the 
universe which is God, your Father. Learn how to let 
Him dwell in you and reign in you. You have all the data. 
Use it and stop doubting." 



Chapter I 



THE message which comes to you in this book is 
addressed first and foremost to those, my old 
pupils and friends, to whom a message from 
me will come with greater force than if it came without 
my name attached to it. I therefore begin — I — William 
James, late professor of psychology at Harvard University, 
Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A., am sending you this message. 
While I was on earth — alive, as you call it — I thought 
that I knew a lot, but now that I have begun to learn a 
very little I see that I failed to know what is in truth 
about the most essential thing of all — namely, you cannot 
prove by your intellect those things which can be proved 
only by life. I mean Jesus Christ said: 'I am the Way, 
the Truth and the Life.' If you want to prove the truth 
of the gospels — the New Testament record of the life of 
Christ — there is only one way in which it can be done; 
that is by living it out in your daily life. I thought that 
I could reason about religion and I neglected the simple 
method of living the religion myself. You think that the 
day has gone by when people can turn to their Bibles, 
and get guidance for everyday affairs therefrom, but I 
tell you, read your Bible, both the Old Testament and 
the New, and devour them, not in any controversial spirit, 
or to help you to prove this or that, but read it for the 
practical basis of every part of your daily lives. Now in 
the 20th century, it is the only possible solution of present- 
day needs. Let the politicians learn to read their Bibles. 
You who used to be — may I say my disciples — oh, I beg 
23 



24 The One Way 

you to listen to me now and obey me. Read your Bibles. 
'They are they which testify of me/ Christ said, referring 
to the Old Testament. How much more then, should 
you read both that and also the New Testament, in order 
to meet your present crisis. All that was said in 'The 
Seven Purposes/ about the terrific struggle that is coming, 
only feebly foreshadows what lies ahead of us all — us 
and you. You must let us into your lives and work 
consciously, clearly with us. There are teachers who can 
and will teach you now to do this. Oh, throw away your 
conservatism that you are so proud of and be ready to 
take the necessary forward path with us. 

"We who have passed through that, which you call 
death, are ten thousand times more alive than we were 
upon earth; we have all the powers that we then had, 
intensified, and far greater and more developed powers, 
of which I will tell you what I can later. But right here 
and now, let me tell you, that there is a tremendous lot 
that we can't tell you, because you are wholly incapable 
of taking it in in your present undeveloped state. How- 
ever, if you will only learn to he fluid, and be willing to be 
led by us, you can be told all that is necessary for us, 
those with you and those here, who stand for the true 
God, to work together for the overthrow of the powers 
of evil. 

"You think that the Great War was a terrible time. I 
tell you, it is as nothing, compared to what is coming; 
and if you won't help us and let us help you the race will 
be held back for centuries. Oh, lay aside your prejudices 
and help us. Men have greatly erred in trying to train 
the brain to the exclusion of other faculties and you must 
stop it now. You are trying to train the body and to 
some extent the hands, but the instincts are being 



The One Way 25 

neglected. Who do you think teaches the birds when 
to migrate each year? Who do you think teaches the 
fish where to spawn? Who do you think has led man up 
and up from the lowest savagery? — God, God, God! 
Who do you think would teach you and all the men and 
women of today if you would let him? God Almighty. 
He has so made man that it is possible for him to 'come 
unto him and make his abode with him.* Do you sup- 
pose that Jesus Christ made any mistake when He 
said that? I tell you He did not; He enunciated one of 
the great fundamental truths of the whole universe, and 
now at the end of nineteen centuries, you are all of you 
seeking every sort of way to accomplish the salvation of 
the human race, except the one and only way, the way 
of the indwelling God — God in the heart and soul of 
every son of man, leading and guiding him all the time. 
It is so simple that most of you are afraid to trust your- 
selves to anything so simple and so easy too, if you will 
only learn to yield to your instinctive knowledge. 

"You all speak familiarly of your consciences; the true, 
clear conscience of a child speaks clear and straight be- 
cause his instincts have not yet been blinded and stunted 
by education. The foolishness of man made the form of 
education, of which you are so proud. Stop it — that is, 
stop, the overemphasis on one side, of man's powers. The 
intellect and the instincts; the body, the mind, and the 
spirit, should each have their due place; whereas, your 
present-day education overemphasizes the intellect. Get 
back to elemental things; the men in the trenches got 
back to elemental life, and they at once began to have 
visions and to see forms about them — and those forms 
were real — they were there. 

"I tell you the human race is one, one, one — writ large, 



26 The One Way 

ONE, and we who are ten thousand times as much alive 
as you are, are able to help you if you will let us because 
you and we are one. You have got to be open minded 
and train your instincts and stop trying to find some 
grand new way, and go back to the old way, the simple 
Bible way. 

"Mrs. B , you go to bed now. I can't work with 

you any more to-night because the next part is so impor- 
tant and you must be fresh. You must perfect the 
mechanical arrangements because such rapid writing is 
hard on your arm. You don't know how tremendously 
important the book is and you will have to work many 
hours a day. It must be published in the early autumn." 

(You made a mistake and told me the other night that the 
doctor would not come and he walked in. I had not asked 
you a direct question, though. I was zvondering if he would 
come, and though I know those details have no spiritual im- 
portance, they are upsetting to mere human intelligence.) 

"Yes my dear friend but we expect you to rise above 
such mistakes. I knew that your boy was not seriously 
ill and I knew you needed the rest and so I said go to bed. 
Now you have got to learn to distinguish between impor- 
tant or spiritual thought messages and unimportant. The 
language of heaven is the thought language governed by 
love. Also you must forgive me for my mistakes. I too 
am just human — a little more advanced than I was when 
on earth, at which time I thought I knew a lot; now I 
know that I know nothing." 

July nth. (It is hard to me to balance the ordinary daily 
duties and the call to this new work, which is exciting and 
interesting.) 

"Well then, pray; you understand that; do it. God 
as you know wants to help at every second of your life. 



The One Way 27 

"One of the most serious dangers of this time is the 
demand for scientific proof of spiritual things. My friends, 
science must have scientific proof, but the things of the 
spirit must have spiritual proof and spiritual proof comes 
only from living the Life, and if you will accept the word 
of tried scientists in astronomy or any other of the scien- 
tific branches, why do you refuse to accept the spiritual 
dictum of those who are proving the things of the spirit 
by the Life. Get back to the elements; drop theological 
discussions and standpoints and get back to first princi- 
ples. Don't imagine that I do not know how many times 
I have said that same thing, but I am writing to those for 
whom my word has weight and I have to repeat the im- 
portant points till you realize that you must attend to 
what I am trying to get across to you. No matter what 
church you belong to, work shoulder to shoulder with 
every force that is making for true progress, and find out 
if they are making for true progress, by measuring them 
up, not against some standard you have been accustomed 
to thinking correct, but take Christ for your standard. 
He is the Way the Truth and the Life; if things won't 
measure up to Him cast them off. Now, you know that 
this was not what I taught on earth, but oh! don't make 
any mistake, it is the only way. He is the Way. I am 
writing like a child, but all truly great things are simple. 
You must help, you must listen. You must believe. One 
of the reasons why the messages from this side seem so 
unsatisfactory to you, is that many of the things you 
long most to have us tell you are the things you must 
find out for yourselves. God has already provided you 
with the basic data from which you could find out, and 
it would weaken your moral fiber if we told you those 
things. To speak in an old-fashioned phrase, 'it is not 



28 The One Way 

allowed/ that is it could be done but it is not for the 
best development of the race, and we could not do it 
because here we want to do God's will and we have 
already learned that nothing is to be gained by pushing 
our wills. Man has but one real possession, and that 
gift God has given him, his free will. It is a Godlike 
attribute and is to be reverenced and prized, but while 
it is the most essential resemblance to God — 'Man made 
in the image of God' — yet, the first thing to do with it, is 
to give it back to Him and say: Thy will not mine be 
done. 

"You are almost all of you undertrained in what I call 
making an act of will. That is another thing of which I 
must treat at length." 

(Mr. James, when I was talking to Miss Davis about this 
— were you ■prompting me?) 

"No, not at all. Of course I have been trying to famil- 
iarize you with all sorts of ideas, and trying to teach you 
to hear and understand my thoughts, and this is a most 
essential truth, and I may have thought to you (note 
this expression), thought to you, not talked to you on 
the subject. I was not in any sense prompting you when 
you talked to her." 

(Did you know that I talked to her?) 

"Yes I did." 

Sunday, July 12th. "The gist of the whole matter is, 
that God has already granted unto man all the revelation 
that is actually necessary for his salvation, but the mass 
of men, having perverted their freedom and used their 
free will to follow out their own ways, have blinded 
themselves and can no longer easily take the leading God 
has given. 

"This matter of automatic writing is far older than 



The One Way 29 

you suppose; it is no new thing. It probably accounts 
for much, in fact perhaps for nearly all, of what we call 
inspired literature. 

"Have you never found yourself in a situation of dan- 
ger, some position wholly new to your experience, and yet 
in a second, quicker than thought, you knew your only 
chance was to follow some line of escape? Had you had 
more time and begun to use your reason and think out 
what you ought to do, ten to one, you might have become 
befogged and done the wrong thing. As it was, you fol- 
lowed your instinct. You can train your instincts just as 
you train a voice to produce a singer. It has to be done. 
There are certain teachers already at work in this matter 
of whom the most successful is Roger Vittoz of Lausanne. 
He himself does not go far enough, and realize that beyond 
the eminently scientific method he has worked out, lies 
the absolute reliance on God, which is an absolute neces- 
sity if man is to work out his own destiny — and man has 
to work out his own destiny — God will never take away 
from you his own priceless gift of free will. You must 
say, 'Father, I have but one, real, enduring, everlasting, 
possession, my free will; it is Thy gift to me and I will 
take it and give it back to Thee, and do Thy perfect will 
which will give me true freedom/ All real thinkers know 
that true freedom instantly implies discipline. A free 
country is not one where every man is free to follow out 
his own will — you do not permit the Bolsheviki to commit 
crimes, you restrain him by laws and no country would 
have freedom that had no restraining laws. Your athlete 
must have the most careful discipline and training if he is 
to obtain the true freedom which will gain him the mas- 
tery over his own body and win him the race. 

" If you want success in earthly things you must work 



30 The One Way 

for it, and the same law obtains in heavenly things; you 
have to cultivate the spiritual and instinctive side of your 
nature as assiduously as if it were a garden, where weeds 
crop up and grow with most astonishing rapidity. This 
sounds trite, but I have to make the whole matter com- 
monplace and practical. Remember what I was as you 
knew me on earth, searching afar ofF for the explanations 
of the great mysteries, and pay attention to what I say 
now; live your religion, prove its truth in your everyday 
life and don't go theorizing about it. It is what you are, 
not what you think, that counts. 

"God has implanted deep in the nature of every son 
of man the power to know good from evil, and you must 
exercise your free will and choose the good. Remember 
you have to go on and on choosing the good, His will, and 
laying your free will back into his hand, and you will 
have to go on doing it to the end of your earthly life. The 
process of learning to probe deep into your own nature, 
is for you at present difficult, because it involves much 
quiet and meditation, a thing for which both the pleasure 
and the work of the world to-day leaves but little time, 
but you must make the time for it. I tell you from this 
side, where I know a great deal more than most of you do 
from your side, that nothing in human life today com- 
pares with the need of preparedness for the great spiritual 
battles that are imminent. America was very slow about 
preparedness for the Great War. In God's name, heed 
our warnings and make preparations for the far greater 
war that is surely coming. Most of you are not single 
hearted enough; you must get less complex, not only in 
your external lives but in the essential you inside. Make 
one clear choice for God and the right, and stop splitting 
hairs. The men in the armies, as I have said before and 



The One Way 31 

as everyone knows, got down to the bare essentials and 
you must do the same, — plain food, plain clothes and no 
waste of your essential powers. 'How long halt ye be- 
tween two opinions? If the Lord be God follow him, but 
if Baal then follow him.' I want to put this in such plain 
language that a baby could understand it, but it is worthy 
of the practice of the wisest man among you. Get back 
to your Biblqs — because 'they are they which testify of 
me,' as Christ said, and you must get back to the one 
elemental cause of all things, God Almighty the creator of 
the Universe, the Father of mankind. Get God for the 
background of all your life and all your thoughts, get him 
for the centre and the kernel of your whole life. 'In Him 
we live and move and have our being' is absolutely true 
just as it stands; you can't love your wife and children 
except that God in you, the imminent, indwelling God, 
who himself is love, enables you to do so. Whatever value 
the Bible may have as an historical record, or as literature, 
its true value is that it shows forth God's dealings with 
men and man's growing relation to God. God made man 
in his image. He made him to be His own companion. 
God would not want a companion who was unlike him- 
self, and since he is omnipotent, omnipresent and omnis- 
cient, he fills man with his own power and presence and 
wisdom, always provided that the individual chooses God 
— lays down his free will and says: 'I have my one God- 
given eternal possession, my Godlike quality ot free will; 
I lay it down voluntarily to do the Perfect will of God.' 
When a man does that, he rises into a far greater degree 
of Godlikeness or becomes far more fit to be the compan- 
ion of God himself, thus fulfilling his own destiny. Let 
your priests and teachers get back to the Bible and preach 
Bible sermons, simply because there you find a supreme 



32 The One Way 

record of God's relation to man and man's relation to 
God. The habit of preaching from one short text has been 
overdone — take your Bible in bigger doses, feel the swing 
and the power of the stories. The real reason for reading 
the Bible, is to get an introduction, as it were, to God — 
then you must pursue the matter and grow into the most 
intimate possible relation to him by talking to him, by 
consulting him in your perplexities, and remember, that 
if you go to consult an earthly friend, out of mere common 
politeness you pause to give him a chance to answer while 
you listen. It is this art of listening to God that is the 
most important lesson for the world today and it must be 
done in the quiet of your own heart. Our Lord said: 
'Enter into thy closet and when thou hast shut thy door 
pray to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father 
which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.' That 
closet is the silence of your own heart. Marcus Aurelius 
said: 'Man know thyself, it is the sum of knowledge.' 
You must have times of quiet, of retirement, if you are 
going to learn this most profound side of prayer. The old 
conception of prayer to God, man asking for things he 
wants or needs, is a very childish, one sided conception of 
prayer. Prayer should be intercourse with God and if 
you do all the speaking and no listening I think it is easily 
seen that your knowledge of, and friendship for, God 
will not grow very fast. Great public meetings for silent 
prayer are of immense power and importance. Get a 
thousand or two or three thousand persons together and 
let them join in silent prayer and you will find great power 
from God Almighty descending upon you. I have spoken 
of the book called the 'Seven Purposes'; therein is set 
forth with great truth the fact that the crisis of the Great 
War is but a small incident in the crisis of the whole 



The One Way 33 

universe that is upon us. If you don't help us and let us 
help you, the progress of the whole human race will be 
delayed [and please remember that the human race is 
not merely those who live on your tiny star but that we 
here also belong to the human race.] Choose whom you 
will serve, God or Baal, and have no double-mindedness 
in any of your ways. Men pursue wealth and nothing 
else, and they become rich in filthy lucre; pursue God 
and let everything else go, and don't make any silly mis- 
take and say, 'that's all very well, who will provide for 
my wife and children?' You fools and slow of heart to 
understand! Keep God in all your thoughts, have him 
for the end and centre of your being and then live your 
common daily life as in his sight, 'not with eye service 
as men pleasers but as servants of Christ serving the 
Lord.' Of course you have to attend to the daily earthly 
life; the man who is mad to make money lives his daily 
life with the basic idea of becoming a millionaire, or still 
better a multimillionaire. I am only asking you to pursue 
the natural daily duties of your earthly life, with the basic 
idea of serving God first and last and all the time. I have 
lived on earth and I know what human life is, and now I 
am in a more advanced stage and I know what I am talk- 
ing about. Perhaps you will laugh and say, 'James used 
to think he knew what he was talking about and evidently 
he hasn't changed much.' Men don't change much, they 
develop and evolve here slowly or fast according to their 
abilities, but chiefly according to the degree of spiritual 
development that they had obtained before tiiey came 
here. I tell you a titanic struggle lies ahead, join forces 
with us, choose whom ye will serve; if God be God serve 
him. 'Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.' 

"What I have already written should show you a little 



34 The One Way 

of that knowledge which I have gained. It is nothing and 
yet such as it is — I give it you. The fear of the Lord — 
that should be translated the awe or wondering contem- 
plation of the Lord — is the beginning of wisdom. He is 
omniscient, the source and end of wisdom. If you would 
only learn how to open your whole natures to him and 
let him into you, — the indwelling God, — you would attain 
to wisdom, not through the painful process of committing 
to memory through your brains only. Of course God gave 
you your minds and of course they are to be used and cul- 
tivated and I would be an utter fool to say stop learning 
and studying, but I do say you must cultivate the whole 
man, and the instincts are a part of man that has almost 
atrophied. The intellectuals of the world do not know 
the debt that they owe to the religious teachers and think- 
ers who have made their religion practical, living out in 
their daily lives those things which they believe, for they, 
and they only, have kept alive the instinctive powers of 
man among the more highly cultured peoples — and when 
I say instinctive, don't think I mean emotional. It may 
include emotion, but is far deeper and greater than mere 
emotion. 

"The only real freedom comes from following out those 
laws which govern the thing with which you are dealing. 
Take for instance the force of electricity, it is a very dan- 
gerous, death-dealing force; work within the laws that 
govern it and you control it. You are free from its 
dangers. A parallel law works with spiritual things. You 
must learn the spiritual laws. As I shall try to show you, 
in the chapter in which I shall deal with the lives of the 
saints, you have already all the revelation about those 
spiritual laws which are necessary to your human life on 
earth. There are greater degrees of spiritual life here and 



The One Way 35 

hereafter, but the basic principles — all of which you stand 
in need — have been given you already, therefore go back 
to straight old fashioned, apostolic, Bible Christianity, 
leave the discussion of theology till you are able to under- 
stand what you are talking about. 

"This sums up my present position about the revelation 
of the Bible. I have tried to make it clear, but it is not 
easy, because we no longer use human language, and it 
is not easy to be sure of getting the matter through. The 
most troublesome thing we have to deal with is the doubt 
of our amanuenses. That is not a wholly bad thing, 
because a person undertaking this work carelessly or out 
of idle curiosity, is in danger of becoming an instrument 
in the hands of unscrupulous or deterrent spirits, and it 
needs the greatest vigilance on the part of the person 
receiving the message not to be interfered with. 1 Yet, in 
order to write, they must sink their own personality to 
the disappearing point, chain their imagination, and at 
the same time, be keenly on the alert, reading and following 
what is written. Hence, you ought to be able to see that 
shades of meaning can easily be blurred — therefore read 
with an open mind, ready to receive the truth and to 
prove it by practical daily living, not in a harshly critical 
or analytical mood. If it is not absolutely correct, re- 
member I too am human, though you are not in the 
habit of applying that word to those of us who have passed 
through the change of death. I too am fallible, and where- 
as I once thought I knew a lot, I now know that I am but 
the humblest of learners — although teaching is still my 
work and my purpose is progress." 

1 1 have not interrupted the book to tell of the many interferences 
which have occurred. 



Chapter II 



THAT the Western and the Eastern philosophies 
have very widely diverging points of view, is 
the current opinion I know, but in truth, there 
is much greater fundamental agreement than you know. 
What few thinkers have as yet realized, is that the whole 
human race is one. In our Western minds is deeply in- 
grained the idea of the Jews as Chosen people of God. 
When they failed to fulfill their destiny and recognize 
their Messiah when he came, we feel that we Christians 
inherited as it were, their place and became the best 
beloved of God. In a sense, there is just enough of vital 
truth in that idea to have helped us to go off at half cock 
and accept it as the whole truth. Now the fact is, the 
whole human race is God's creation one and in a sense 
indivisible. Backward races hold back the whole progress. 
The so-called heathen nations hold back the progress of 
Christianity, and the self-satisfied attitude of the mass 
of the Christian world has prevented them from recogniz- 
ing, that at the heart of the so-called heathen religions 
lies an aspect of truth whereby God was preparing those 
people to be ready for the teaching of Christianity, which 
should have been brought to them centuries ago. It is 
hardly possible to speak too strongly of the importance of 
missionary work among the so-called heathen nations. 
The luke-warmness of many Christians on that subject, 
not to speak of the actual antagonism, is a fearful blot 
and disgrace on the church and should be ruthlessly cut 
out by individuals and masses of men, like any other 
36 



The One Way 37 

cancerous evil growth. The family dies if no children are 
born, the church must atrophy and decay, unless it is 
spreading and increasing — not only at home but abroad. 
You have seen how the world has been rocked almost to 
its foundation by one nation determined on destruction. 
Germany's population at the beginning of the war was 
only 1/17 part of the population of the world. What 
do you think will happen to business and art and science 
if you let things go on as at present ? China, Japan, Africa, 
with their teeming millions of non-Christians getting edu- 
cation and external civilization and no real Christianity? 
Then add to that, the vast amount of heathen in our own 
so-called Christian lands — and right here, let me tell you 
that Christianity pure and as it was given to the world 
nineteen centuries ago, is the final religion; put that on 
your housetops and let it be engraven on your hearts. 
'Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life.' There 
is no other way. Live it out in your daily lives. Never- 
theless, the full revelation of the gospel of Christ will 
never come until Orientals and all races of men are drawn 
in — adding their interpretation of the Christ to yours. 
God is not a man to be suited to one race or nation alone. 
He is the creator of the universe, and he can and does fill 
all men and all things. Many have become disgusted with 
Christianity, because there are so many professing Chris- 
tians who belie the truth of what they say they believe. 
Most of the followers of the Eastern philosophies, or relig- 
ions, if you prefer so to call them, have done the same thing 
only a thousand fold more so. The practices of Buddhism 
for instance, are very far removed from the original ideas 
of Buddha — Buddhism should have been but a preparatory 
revelation, leading on to and preparing for, a fuller reve- 
lation of God's eternal truth. It has, in point of fact, 



38 The One Way 

become so debauched that, as generally practised and 
lived today, it has little or no relation to the original high 
ideals such as you find in their sacred books. It is as true 
for them as for you that it is not what is written in their 
religious books that counts, but what the actual lives of 
the men and women are. So far as I know, every one of 
the great philosophers of the world have perceived or 
realized a small vital grain or aspect of truth, and on that 
they have built up a whole fabric — trying to stretch that 
bit of the truth to cover a far greater field than it could 
cover. The mind of man is so small that it is absolutely 
impossible for him to take in more than the merest sug- 
gestion of Eternal Truth. But when a man runs across — 
discovers or learns about — one small aspect of truth he is 
so overwhelmingly impressed by the inherent power that 
is latent in all truth, that he with his finite mind feels 
that he has discovered all truth. You can hold your hand 
before your eyes and blot out the widest landscape. You 
only blot it out from yourself, the landscape is still there. 
Your ignorance or disbelief in the Eternal Verities of God 
doesn't hurt those Eternal Verities, but it does handicap 
you. One reason why scientists have found it so hard to 
accept purely religious truths is, that the aspect of truth 
to which they have been devoting their study has blinded 
them. It is this limitation of your whole mental attitude 
that you must clear away. Life is not in little sections; 
the life of God's whole universe is a unit, a whole, hang- 
ing together — let one part be damaged, all is damaged, its 
perfection marred. 

"If I can persuade you to open your eyes to the new 
aspect of old truths, I think I can show you that there is 
value in most of the philosophies both of the East and 
West, but a partial value, a small contribution that each 



The One Way 39 

had to make to the whole. Take for instance, Berkeley's 
philosophy. He obtained a great following, his writings 
are still studied, but I think that if you have a slight re- 
stating of this man's theories you will find a great illumi- 
nation of all his writing. You will see the value of what 
he taught, and yet lose the limitation of his point of view. 
He states that we have no proof of the existence of matter. 
How does that strike the average man of today, with the 
materialistic point of view that that only is real which I 
can touch handle or prove indisputably? In this connec- 
tion, consider for a moment all the class of thinkers who 
say pain and suffering are not real. You must acknowledge 
that if one man can break his leg and feel no pain, he has 
something over the next man who breaks his leg and suf- 
fers torture. Of course, at once I hear a clamor of voices 
asserting, 'the first man is just a liar; he has the pain 
but he won't admit it.' No friends, there you are wrong; 
that man has got hold of a secret — in reality it is an aspect 
of truth that should be free to all. It is this, that though 
a broken bone usually carries with it much pain, in the 
present state of the development of the human race, there 
is a higher law. To the man who lives steadfastly facing 
God, matter and its laws can practically cease to exist 
because the higher can wholly dominate and swallow up 
the lower. God, the indwelling Father, can, if his child 
chooses that he shall — interpenetrate every atom of a 
man's body, and to the man who has learned this as a 
practical working principle of daily life, the coming of 
the broken bone need not necessarily bring pain, because 
he can so open his whole self to God that God can come in 
and show forth his power, just at that point where it is 
most needed. There are on the earth today, many men 
who are practising the presence of God in their bodies, to 



4-0 The One Way 

such an extent that they are freed from physical pain. 
Please let me remind you, that God will never force 
himself into either your soul or your body, unless 
you choose to have him — he will never interfere with 
your royal prerogative of free will — therefore, you 
must learn by a steady practice of the Presence of 
God to call his indwelling power into your body and 
your soul. It is rare that a man can open himself 
to God's indwelling power in his body, in an emer- 
gency, unless he has been at least a little in the habit of 
practising the Presence of God in his daily life. I say, 
in his body, advisedly, because many a man subcon- 
sciously in his soul practises the Presence of God and 
acknowledges his sovereignty in his soul, even when his 
intellect does not assent, but your intellect must assent 
before you can be very successful in opening your body 
to God's indwelling power. Remember always that your 
ignorance of a law does not make it untrue. There are 
many men and women among you today who are living 
this truth in their daily life. It is for you too, if you 
choose to get up and work for it. 

("Mrs. B do not doubt, because so much of this 

that I am writing is familiar to you. It is just because 
you are advanced in many lines of spiritual thought that 
you have been appointed to receive and transmit this 
message. I know it is hard for you to believe that I am 
really in control, because you often hear my thought, at 
least in part, before the pencil writes it down, but it need 
be no matter of quarrel between us who writes this book 
if it contains a message of vital, living truth to needy men 
and women; it is no matter if I borrow some of your 
thoughts and write them down. Not one word has been 
written that I don't fully assent to.) 



The One Way 41 

"Don't let anyone think that they can attain unto it 
without hard "work. It requires a constant renewing of 
your determination to live according to God's will, not 
according to your own fancy and desire. Suppose that 
we state it something like this. That alone is real which 
has eternal or enduring existence. Then matter — your 
chairs and tables, your houses and lands are not real for 
you all know that given enough time they will fade away 
and be gone. The pain of the broken limb of the man 
who is ignorant of the indwelling power of God will not 
endure eternally, yet it is very real to him while it lasts. 
It is actual and for him very terrible and it is simply silly 
to say he has no pain — of course he has the pain — he is 
suffering horribly. It is true that he has pain, nevertheless 
it is more true that it is possible for a man to break his 
leg and if he be sufficiently versed in the art of opening 
himself to the indwelling power of God both in his body 
and his soul he can have the broken leg without pain. 
This is a fact. Now, since it is a fact, hadn't you better 
learn how to open yourself body and soul to the indwelling 
power of your heavenly Father and gradually let pain and 
sickness be done away for the race? Your soul is real, for 
it will endure forever. Berkeley contended that the only 
thing that a man really knew existed was his own self or 
soul. Take your Berkeley and reread it from this point 
of view. Take your modern books that deal with these 
points and reread them in the light of what I have told 
you — suck the drop of vital, eternal, enduring truth out 
of each one and incorporate it into your daily life. God 
is not only an indwelling God but He is omniscient, the 
end and source of all wisdom, and the man who chooses 
to have God for his all, has open to him the source of all 
wisdom. If you truly rely upon God, he will guide you 



42 The One Way 

into all wisdom. Don't let anyone think I am preaching 
a doctrine of ease, of lying down upon God and doing no 
work themselves. No other form of life demands an equal 
degree of moral fibre, or an equal degree of effort on your 
part. That old free will of yours will be cropping up to the 
last day of your earthly life, and as often as it reappears 
you must take it and lay it at God's feet determinedly. 
You will never win to Heaven — that place or state where 
God dwells — on flowery beds of ease, and yet it is true you 
can only attain to Heaven through God's power alone. 
By yourselves you could never reach there. The real art 
of living is to open yourself so that he can come in and 
dwell in you. 'In whom we live and move and have our 
being.' At first, it may seem a paradox to say, you cannot 
attain by any striving of your own, God has to do it all, 
and then to say you must work every second to accom- 
plish the end. The hardest thing a man can do is to lay 
down that Godlike quality of free will — that quality 
which above all others shows him to be made in the image 
of God — but if you wish to attain, you must lay down the 
image or likeness to God in order that He may enter into 
you and dwell in you so that you will become one with 
Him. It is obviously greater to become one with God 
than to be made in His image. 

"Search out in your Bible and find how many centuries 
before Christ it was stated, 'The temples of the Lord are 
ye.' Men and women, that is what you were created for, 
to be the Temples of the Lord. Are you fulfilling your 
destiny? I ask all who hear this message to clear out their 
temples and let God alone dwell in them and to help all 
other men to clear out their temples and let God come into 
His own. Be assured of this; Christ meant exactly what 
he said when he said 'If a man love me he will keep my 



The One Way 43 

commandments and my Father and I will come unto him 
and make our abode with him.'" 

July 15th. "Take for another example the teachings of 
Socrates, with their great beauty of ideals. They again 
were meant to be a preparation for the fuller revelation 
of the Gospel of Christ. That man should seek happiness 
as the goal of his desire is entirely proper, but do you want 
permanent or transitory happiness? Do you want the 
pleasure of the flesh which will pass with the flesh or do 
you want the pleasure of the intellect and the soul ? Most 
men are so short sighted that it is hard for them to look 
ahead of their earthly life and realize that to us here, even 
those of us who lived a long time on earth and have been 
here but a short time, the life of earth is but a moment. 
It is a fact that the sins of the flesh destroy the flesh. 
You may think that is of no consequence since your flesh 
is left upon earth. Here, we have not fleshly bodies yet 
we feel all our members, just as completely, — no, far more 
completely than you feel yours, and just as you would 
feel with a fleshly body minus your limbs or some of your 
vital organs, so is a man here who having indulged in the 
sins of the flesh has destroyed some vital part of his 
spiritual body. You make your spiritual bodies by the 
life you live upon earth — therefore if you want happiness 
it behooves you to seek it even with tears. Remember 
this the next time you read Socrates. 

"What I am trying to tell you should, if I make my 
meaning clear, enhance the value of the beauty you find 
in your Socrates and give a wholly new value to it. 
The same is true of Plato. He wrote, as most men 
do, for his day, revealing as much as the men of his 
day were capable of receiving. Take back to your 
classical reading the idea " that they were playing their 



44 The One Way 

part in a great world plan known from the beginning 
to the Almighty Father. 

"Right here, comes in again the old age-long question, 
if man has free will how can God know beforehand what 
man will do? How could God have a plan which man 
will fulfill? Simply because man, having been made in 
the image of God, must in the end fulfill his own destiny 
and become truly Godlike. Now, when man chooses to 
go off on his own wilful way and do that which is con- 
trary to his own inherent God likeness, he delays the 
whole plan, and sometimes a few men have succeeded in 
putting back the progress of the world, for centuries, pro- 
longing the agony. This would have happened if Ger- 
many had been successful and won the war. 

"Nearly all thinkers recognize that you have come to 
the end of one era in the history of the earth and the be- 
ginning of a new era. What you do not realize is, that it 
is also an eternal crisis and unless the forces that are for 
progress — and when I speak of the forces for progress I 
mean all men everywhere who are working constructively 
for God, whether consciously or unconsciously — unless 
these forces unite and put their whole power into the 
fight, the deterrent forces who are united may win the 
battle for the time being, and the development of all men 
be held back for centuries. We are permitted to tell you 
that the world war is as nothing compared to the titanic 
struggle that lies before the human race, and don't forget, 
that that includes us here. A very large part of the world 
today thinks, that when death comes to a man his account 
is settled and he goes to his place and his chance is over. 
That idea has gained such ascendancy over the human 
race because it has in it such a great amount of truth. 
Your earthly life is given you to make all your most im- 



The One Way 45 

portant growth in, that is, the starting of your growth, 
the potential growth if I may so express it. In what I 
am now saying, I speak of the ordinary average human 
being, not of maimed individuals whose imperfections of 
mind and body put them into a separate class. Of them 
I will speak later. The essential growth you have to make 
is your choice between good and evil: on that hangs all 
the rest. All intellectual development is only relatively 
important. Every man has thousands of chances to renew 
or even change his choice, but your whole future does 
depend on the choice you make in your earthly life. A 
man who has sinned on earth, consistently and deliber- 
ately, can return to God and to goodness, but through a 
course of training and discipline that is more terrible than 
any hell fire you have ever conceived of. The burning of 
flames is a purely material interpretation, suited to the 
development of man at the time that the teaching was 
put into words: the burning of remorse is to a spirit un- 
utterably greater and more terrible than any suffering of 
your body such as being burned. During your earthly 
life you are given hundreds and thousands of chances to 
make your choice. If you refuse to make your choice 
there, when you come here you will have to take the 
consequences. There is no organized punishment here; 
there are the consequences. Sinners, as you popularly 
use that term, who come here, are met with love and 
given a chance to make their choice here. If they will not 
take it they must take the consequences and the conse- 
quences are more awful than any words can describe. 
Yet, the Salvation of Christ will not be complete until all 
men have come in and returned to God, though it be from 
the lowest hell — through agony unutterable — every single 
soul is necessary to God. 
4 



\G The One Way 

"The reason why Germany was able to withstand the 
whole world for such a long time was that Germany, the 
central empire, was completely united under a despotic 
government that held it into a unit all acting together. 
The Allies might have been victorious much earlier had 
they earlier been united as they later became. The de- 
terrent, or what you would call evil, forces are uniting now 
for a titanic struggle. God is permitting us a chance to 
talk to you and to help you to unite before it is too late. 
Put aside your differences of all kinds, religious, political, 
civic, economic, and unite. Unite with each other and 
unite with us. 

"People who are successful in doing automatic writing 
for the forces of progress learn very quickly to recognize 
when a deterrent spirit touches the pencil, and you must 
learn to recognize when a deterrent spirit whispers a 
thought or suggestion to your mind or spirit, to recognize 
them and instantly send them to their own place. You 
can protect yourself by a clear determined order. 'Get 
thee behind me. Say, 'I absolutely refuse to be interfered 
with by mischievous or deterrent spirits whether in the 
body or out of it. But remember your whole will must 
be behind the above statement. If you have not attained 
sufficient force of will, pray. Prayer is one of the levers 
that can lift the universe, because by true prayer you 
unite yourself to the Almighty Creator of the universe. 
Remember true prayer is union with God, not petitions 
asking for benefits. Prayer in Christ's name is prayer 
which is in unison with the Spirit of God. 

"I have said that this chapter was to deal with the dif- 
ferent philosophies both western and eastern. I do not 
propose to take them up one by one and discuss them. 
I only mean to give you suggestions; pointing the way — 



The One Way 47 

so that you can compare them to the fuller revelation, 
and for yourselves put them where they belong. Your 
earthly life is your best time for growth and we should 
weaken your fibre if we who now know a little more than 
you do should direct you what to do or what to think. 
You must make your own decisions and experiments. It 
is a fresh outpouring of the infinite love of the Almighty 
Father that at this time there is permitted a lifting of the 
veil between our worlds. It is not nearly so great a change 
as you believe it to be. In days gone by, prophets and 
great men have received inspiration, some of them direct 
from God or from some of his servants whom he has ap- 
pointed for that purpose, into their minds or in the case 
of authors through the pen or pencil. If you will look 
this matter up you will find now and again records of 
authors, who wrote their books with a rapidity that was 
absolutely incredible. Without the least doubt that was 
pure automatic writing. 

"Now to merely mention such men as Ran." 

(Here follow a series of attempts to take a name.) 

{Wait a minute, let us fray for God's power. Are you 
tired?) 

"No because we don't get tired in that sense as long as 
there is work to be done and the proper opportunity to 
do it; God supplies us with his strength, just as the water 
main supplies the water in your pipes as long as you make 
the demand for it by keeping your faucet open. The same 
supply is for you, only you have not yet learned to use it 
when your minds and bodies grow what you call weary." 

{Then it is I who am — what I call tired?) 

"Yes." 

(Nothing is more convincing to me than the way the 
pencil stops when Mr. James or my husband are done.) 



48 The One Way 

(After nearly an hour's rest.) 

"You know those two names now but didn't I have a 
time with you? Take such men as Renan and Jean 
Jacques Rousseau — they allowed doubts to come in so 
that to many people they were really deterrent spirits, 
yet mixed in was honest seeking after truth. It is not my 
place to tell you which were and which were not deterrent 
spirits, but to remind you that you have a standard to 
measure by. 'The fulness of the measure of the stature 
of Christ.' Some men there are — Nietzsche and Zwindei — 
Zwinderk — Zwindecky, my goodness let me write with the 
pencil, what is the matter with you, Zwindecku the Rus- 
sian — who were wholly deterrent and yet who incorporated 
just enough truth into their work to accomplish the most 
enormous amount of harm. 

"I know that to many people this chapter will seem 
utterly unsatisfactory, because they would like me to do 
their deciding and thinking for them. I am not permitted 
to do that. Of course I could tell you all that I now 
know but doing so would be a deterrent act, and I hope 
you know I am not on that side." 

(Did I get that Russian name right?) 

"Zwitnbouchu, Znwimbouchu, Tznwimbouchu — You 
were awful" 

{Was it because I was tired or was it some stupidity on my 
fart?) 

"No, names especially unknown and foreign ones, are 
always hard to get through. 

"Now go on. Someone tried to interfere. I don't be- 
lieve I will go into any of the Oriental philosophies or even 
touch on them. This chapter is only to offer a pointer. 
The rest must be worked out by you who read this. 



Chapter III 



DON'T think that I have forgotten your point 
of view. You want accurate scientific infor- 
mation given you. What you know as the 
scientific attitude is too small, too sectional. It is perfect 
as far as it goes, but astronomers don't use the laws of 
electricity to measure by. So, don't you think that be- 
cause your scientific way is so good for certain things, that 
everything comes under that one method of proof. It 
does not. It is one of the important ways of working out 
your side of the problem. The place where you err, is 
that you feel as if all things must be proved by scientific 
rules. That is simply your limitation and ignorance. 
Science is one department. It is not the whole thing. At 
present you cannot subject spiritual laws to accurate 
scientific tests. Even medicine has never been an abso- 
lutely accurate science, because the recuperative power of 
the human body is a spiritual quality and you can't esti- 
mate it except on spiritual lines and by spiritual laws." 

July 17th. "I do not feel very well satisfied with that 
last chapter. You better let us read that last chapter 
over together." 

{How can you read it?) 

"By your reading it I can perceive the ideas in your 
mind. I do not think I have given a good title to Chap- 
ter II. You change it. Call it 'The Value of Certain 
Philosophies, Both of the East and West.' Now continue 
Chapter III. 

"The way that you can prove spiritual laws is by living 
49 



50 The One Way 

them and that is the only way. You must have the cour- 
age to experiment. Think of the pioneers of science, the 
men who have given their lives for electricity, steam, 
aviation and ten thousand other developments. You 
need not give up the life of your body in the sense of dying, 
but you must devote yourselves, body, soul and mind, to 
the experiment of proving spiritual laws. Fortunately 
for you there has gone before a vast amount of work into 
this experiment. If I were to give a list of experimenters 
— the saints of the earth — it alone would fill a book. 
Some of the best for you to study are found in the Bible. 
To many, a half familiarity with the Bible stories has 
dulled their understanding and appreciation. Conquer 
that; it is stupid. 

"Take Marcus Aurelius. You won't like all he says. 
Find out parts of his writing that appeal to you, and live 
those. It is easier to do that with books than with living 
saints, the set of whose bonnet or the tones of whose 
voices annoy and rasp you. Yet the same thing that I 
counsel your doing with the writings of saints I counsel, 
I had almost said I command — not that I have any right 
to command, and it would become useless if I commanded 
and you obeyed, for you must choose the right for your- 
self — therefore I counsel that you look at the living men 
or women who are fitting to be leaders, saints, holy men, 
and find their essential goodness and unite with them. 
Let the annoying things in them slide off you like water 
off a duck's back. Cut out from your mind the attitude, 
'Yes, no doubt he or she is a fine force, a strong character, 
but I can't stand this or that small thing in them.' Unite 
with their fine purposes and let us get to work to beat the 
forces of evil, we call them deterrent forces here. The idea 
that evil has power is wrong. God alone has real power. 



The One Way 51 

Individuals who choose to follow their own wills, thus 
denying God, are deterrent and produce evil results. You 
can protect yourself from them by allying yourselves 
firmly to God. You should understand by this time, that 
the language we use here is the thought language. Conse- 
quently a Russian and an Englishman, or any combina- 
tion, can speak freely together provided only that their 
level of development be the same — which means not only 
their intellectual education but their spiritual knowledge. 
There are many instances of thought transference known 
among you, and they are simply examples of our common 
manner of communicating here. Now you can learn much 
of that language. You already know much more of it 
than you realize. You hear many thoughts, both elevating 
and debasing, and you must choose which kind of thoughts 
you will entertain. You can protect yourself by a deter- 
mined choice. Say in words, 'I refuse to be interfered 
with,' and mean it when you say it. 

"The lives of the saints are very little studied in these 
days, but certain of them should be constantly in use 
among you. 'The Practise of the Presence of God/ by 
Brother Lawrence, Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living and 
Dying,' the 'Lives of the Saints,' by Williamson." 

(Is that the right title?) 

"The 'Lives of the Saints' by Williamson, 'Men and 
Martyrs' by Manlius Welby." 

(Was that right?) 

"Yes. 'Many Men of Saintly Life' by Wilkinson and 
others. 'Father John' of Russia. 1 I don't remember the 
exact title of his book. It deals with the miracles of heal- 
ing performed through the Holy Communion. There are 



Ivan Iliilch Sergief. Probably his Diary is indicated. 



52 The One Way 

many others but these especially bear on points I want to 
bring out. Of course they must be read from the point of 
view I have laid down for you, both as to measuring them 
by the One and Only Standard, Christ, and also as con- 
tributing their part to the whole revelation. God has 
revealed Himself always through the lives of certain men, 
and the study of the lives of the saints would be of very 
small value unless they sent you back to God from whom 
of course they drew all their power. God made man in 
His image; to be His temple; to become His companion; 
as an instrument through which He could manifest Him- 
self to others, until all come to 'the measure of the stature 
of the fulness of Christ/ 

"Most people, who have attained to mastery in any 
line, have learned that to discover as far as possible the 
laws of that with which they are working, then to work in 
harmony with those laws, yielding themselves as freely as 
possible to the element in which they work, brings the 
most rapid success. Take as an example the athlete. He 
trains his muscle but he must keep his suppleness and 
freedom of motion or he instantly loses power, but he must 
never descend to sloth or relax to the degree of loss of 
power. Now you have got to learn to become fluid. Here 
we speak of a person's essential essence." 

{Once when I was meditating with a friend and had felt an 
intense sense of God's presence and power, I felt as if I were 
partially outside and above my own body which was lying on 
the bed. What was that?) 

"Probably you were so closely united to our Heavenly 
Father that your essential essence had partially passed 
out of your body, but I cannot speak with authority about 
it. It is a possible thing to be done, but an extremely 
dangerous one if practised under any but the highest 



The One Way 53 

spiritual conditions. No such experience should be sought 
for itself. If it occurs in the course of prayer that is one 
thing, but seeking spiritual experiences of such kind, ex- 
cept as they may occur in the course of prayer and adora- 
tion, is not only dangerous but wrong. In spiritual things 
never work for the loaves and fishes. One reason why 
people so often fail to receive spiritual healing of bodily 
ills is, that they seek the healing, the relief from pain, as 
the end, whereas it should not be the end but an incident 
in their growing knowledge and worship of God. Seek 
Him. When you have reached Him you will be healed 
and you can become 'perfect even as your Father in heaven 
is perfect.' God is the heart of the universe, and as your 
blood flows from your heart to all parts of your body, so 
God's power can flow to every part of the universe, filling, 
energizing, healing every soul who desires to receive Him. 
Desires is not quite the right word, because it does not 
signify a determination to lay down your will and do His; 
a determination as hard as adamant, yet as free and fluid 
as the flowing seas." 

{Could we get it a little clearer about my -perhaps writing 
down my ideas or influencing the pencil from the point of 
view of this world, of people other than myself? I think it 
will take from the strength and power of your message if our 
readers feel that I influenced what was written.) 

"We can make that clear. Not one single word have 
you written, without my full assent, except when I have 
crossed it out. I am the master in this situation because 
you are willingly yielding your hand an instrument to 
me. I think the thoughts to your mind and you write 
them down, and when you get tired or stop receiving 
freely I send you to bed or out of doors. 1 

1 This writing was done chiefly in the evening. 



54 The One Way 

"The chief trouble with the world today is that men 
and women are not clear about the purpose they mean to 
serve. There are only seven purposes in the universe. 
They are progress, healing, light, power or force, building 
or production, truth and love, which includes justice and 
service. Here we come to one of our great limitations. 
Those seven words are the nearest I can come to naming 
the seven purposes, but they are inadequate and you 
can't understand until you attain to more complete knowl- 
edge. But take it practically. Look into the lives about 
you — your own and others. Aren't all the people — with 
a very few exceptions — trying to grasp at too many 
things? They want education, possessions, development, 
pleasures, riches, and in the end, feebly, spiritual things. 

"That is making things topsy turvy. If you have 
spiritual things first, the other things naturally follow. 
God put you into the world. 'Your Heavenly Father 
knoweth that ye have need of these things. Seek ye first 
the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added 
unto you/ 

"It is an absolute impossibility to state too strongly the 
need of singleness of heart and purpose. The confusion in 
people's minds as to which of two courses to follow is 
responsible lor the greatest amount of harm both to 
individuals and to the whole destiny of man. You should 
train yourselves and your children how to make decisions 
quickly and clearly. It can be trained just as definitely 
as you can train your muscles for any purpose you choose 
to work for. It is a part of that training of the instincts 
of which I have told you so many times. God made man 
capable of discerning between good and evil and you 
should be able to do it promptly. 

"The most important thing to be taught is a power of 



The One Way 55 

decision, which is now greatly lacking both in the individ- 
ual and in the race at large. Many of the most serious 
difficulties arise from indecision. The capacity to make 
true acts of will has not been taught because many people 
do not know what a true act of will is in the sense of not 
being able to analyze an act of will nor to make one on 
command. By that I mean, if I say to you, 'Make an act 
ol will,' you don't know what I mean. Most people would 
not have the least idea how to begin. If you take an in- 
dividual who has a naturally strong will and clear under- 
standing, place him in a situation demanding quick and 
intelligent action, he will make his act of will splendidly 
but automatically. Take the same person and ask him to 
make an act of will and he will not have any idea how he 
does it, or where. Ten to one he will say, 'I make my 
decisions in my brain.' He does not. The intellect may 
or may not assent to the act of will, but the act of will is 
far more simple and elemental — it is not made in the in- 
tellect. The will is the most fundamental part of man. 
You make your act of will where you know the difference 
between good and evil, in the centre of your being, in your 
soul. The psychologists of today spend a lot of time talk- 
ing over what is the nature of the subconscious mind, the 
functional brain. I tell you that this is your soul, the 
essential you, the undying worm. It is there that you 
make your acts of will, your true decisions. The will is, 
as I have repeated over and over, the most fundamental 
part of man's nature. It is therefore essential that men 
should be able to make true acts of will, clear decisions, 
discern clearly and promptly between two courses. These 
acts of will are made at the centre of your being. Men 
call it the subconscious mind or the functional brain. It 
is your soul. Please note that from now on when I say 



S6 The One Way 

your soul, that includes what you call the subconscious 
mind. After the decision has been made in the soul, it is 
important that the intellect should assent in order to give 
the soul full freedom and enable it to be your guide. 

"The whole matter is so subtle, yet withal so utterly 
simple, that I find it almost impossible to use human words 
to express my meaning. It is of the most fundamental 
importance that I get this over clearly and that you under- 
stand and then that you incorporate it into your daily 
life. The instincts which I have urged you to train are 
the same thing, the soul life. It is through his soul that 
man approaches to God, through his soul that he hears 
the guiding voice of God and feels what we here call the 
rhythm of the universe. The peace of God which passeth 
understanding is again the rhythm of the Creator. It is 
at once universal and most intensely personal from the 
Father to the child. The more a man lives within the 
rhythm of God, the more power he attains to. Now it is 
not a gift reserved for the few, but a common universal 
right of every child of God. I have said you were to train 
the instincts. You must train your souls, that is one and 
the same thing. It is simple. It is not unlike the training 
required for the muscles. It must be simple at first, even 
trivial, then increasing in importance. A true act of will 
must follow these three rules: it must be possible, it must 
be single, it must be sincere. Let us say you are reading; 
you glance up and see that a picture is crooked and you 
make an act of will to straighten it. First, the straighten- 
ing must be a possibility; second, it must be single, i.e., 
you must not say 'If I can find the stepladder I will 
straighten that picture/ In case the stepladder is neces- 
sary to enable you to put it straight you would, during 
the process of training your self in making true acts of 



The One Way 57 

will, have to make two separate acts of will — The first, 
'I will go get the stepl adder'; that is one complete act of 
will. Then make a second one, 'I will straighten that 
picture.' Thirdly, in both cases you must be sincere in 
your determination to get the stepladder and to straighten 
the picture. 

"Why all this history over a tiny act of that kind that 
is thought of, done, forgotten in a second? Because a 
large proportion of the men and women in the world look 
at the picture and see the need of straightening it and say 
vaguely to themselves, 'I must straighten that picture.' 
They finish reading and forget it and have put, according 
to the old saying, a paving stone in hell. Instead of being 
clear, incisive doers of the right they have done a deter- 
rent act. They saw what was right to do and straightway 
forgot what manner of man they are and never did what 
they ought to have done. By the time a man or woman has 
repeated that kind of vagueness a few thousand of times, 
he has injured his own powers both intellectual and spirit- 
ual. He has committed many trivial deterrent acts, each 
of seemingly no importance in itself, but deteriorating his 
powers. It is not necessary to get up from your reading 
to straighten that picture. If you make a true act of will 
it is done in one flash, not requiring to be mentally ex- 
pressed in words, 'When I am done reading I will get the 
steps and straighten that picture.' The single-minded, 
efficient man does straighten it when he gets up and that 
is wiped off the slate. He doesn't have to tire his over- 
taxed brain by remembering when he is halfway down 
town, 'Oh, I didn't straighten that picture!' 

"There will be three classes of readers of this passage. 
The man who habitually makes clear, true acts of will 
will call the whole thing trash. He has never broken 



58 The One Way 

down his power of will. He doesn't know that the reason 
so many people he has to deal with are incompetent and 
good for nothing is that they did not inherit strong, de- 
cisive wills and no one has trained their wills to make 
them strong. The second class are those who, through 
shock, illness, or bad, slack mental habits have lost their 
will power, they will read with joy and realize that there 
is hope and renewal ahead of them. The third class are 
those who were born with weakened will power and never 
have been taught. The first and second classes must take 
care of the third class and teach them. 

"The cases of reformed men and women who were ap- 
parently reformed by a miracle are simply cases where 
some shock has startled them, and their whole will power 
has been so aroused that they have risen up and made, one 
tremendous act of will which has changed their whole 
lives. It is not a miracle — at least, if by miracle you mean 
something outside of law — it is simply the working of a 
common everyday law, but one with which you are not 
consciously familiar. Now get familiar with that law and 
begin to use it, just as you have chained the lightning to 
light your houses. 

"It is simply impossible to exaggerate the importance 
of this. The central empire was completely united, hence 
her success. When the Allies became truly united they 
were victorious. Most of the men and women you know 
are like the Allies during the earlier part of the war. Their 
central purpose is to serve God, but they commit so many 
deterrent acts (you call them sins) that they lose their 
singleness of heart and neither they themselves nor their 
friends know where they stand. You must find out your 
place in God's scheme and then turn neither to the right 
nor the left, pursue it for your life, pursue it as the miser 



The One Way 59 

pursues gold, with absolute singleness of heart. 'Be ye 
therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.' 
That is no unattainable counsel of perfection. Seek only 
one thing, God, and His righteousness, and you will be- 
come so filled with His indwelling power that you will be 
one with His perfection — not man made in the image of 
God, but man in absolute union with God. So shall ye 
dominate all things." 



Chapter IV 



THIS chapter is to deal with the question of how 
you can help us and how we can help you. I 
have touched on the subject of thought lan- 
guage. The language of heaven is governed by love. The 
thought language is that used by all disembodied spirits; 
deterrent spirits use it also; they are not governed by the 
law of love. You all know much more of this thought 
language than you realize. People on earth who are very 
sympathetic are often able to read each other's unspoken 
thoughts. Under certain conditions people can send their 
thought definitely to each other though separated by dis- 
tance. These experiences are all commonly classed under 
the term telepathy. The first step in our mutual co- 
operation is for you to recognize that you can and do 
receive thoughts from us — and to practice it consciously. 
This involves a serious danger unless done with the 
highest purpose. You are familiar with the fact that a 
wireless instrument receives the message to which it is 
attuned but cannot receive that to which it is not attuned. 
Now you, each one of you, hold the power of deciding 
absolutely what messages you will receive; to what class 
of message you will be attuned. If you are controlled, 
clear, concise, and refuse to admit any interference with 
mischievous or deterrent spirits, they cannot get in — but 
be sure they will not cease trying to get in, and if you 
become undecided, lazy or slothful, beware, for they will 
come at once and give you thought messages. Satan walk- 
60 



The One Way 61 

ing to and fro in the earth seeking whom he may devour, 
is no bad image. 

"The same clearness of which I have spoken in regard 
to acts of will is demanded here in consciously receiving 
thought messages from us or in sending them to us. You 
must be single-minded. St. James says, 'A double-minded 
man is unstable in all his ways.' To many people, con- 
sciously to receive or send thought messages will at first 
demand a good deal of effort at mental self-control, but 
the prize is worth all the price that must be paid for it. 

Mrs. B has given in her Introduction, a very good 

suggestion of how to practice receiving a thought message. 
The real you is what you are in your mind and soul and 
heart, not what you are in your fleshly body. Five min- 
utes after death your essential self is just what it was five 
minutes before death. Of course in saying that, I am think- 
ing of a person to whom death comes when they are in 
health and full possession of their powers." 

{Do you mean if they were not in possession of their full 
powers before death the infirmity would not be carried on?) 

"Exactly. Almost immediately after death you find 
yourself possessed of the power to read or hear thoughts. 
As that is the case, you can easily see how soon with con- 
scious practice you could learn to receive direct clear 
conscious communications with us. Without your co- 
operation we can only communicate our thoughts to you, 
provided all conditions are favorable. Sometimes that 
means months or years of waiting. Simple people are the 
easiest to reach. The more complex you are the more 
difficult it is to us to get in. The most highly educated 
and intellectual men are frequently very complex and very 
difficult to influence. The truest greatness is, however, 
simple. Your intellectual development is an advantage 

5 



62 The One Way 

to us, besides carrying much more weight in your life, 
especially to your most powerfully developed thinkers. 
Therefore, we want you to co-operate to retrain your 
instincts. We need your whole man in its highest per- 
fection, and that can only be reached by your being more 
direct, less complex. Your houses, your food, your dress 
are all too elaborate. The paraphernalia of your lives is 
too complicated. During the war everything was sim- 
plified and almost every one preferred that simplicity. 
Why have you gone right back to the old way? 

"What I want to teach you is as old as the hills and as 
simple as A, B, C, yet you do not see it and believe it and 
live it. We here stand for God clearly and strongly [I 
am using human expressions] because here you either 
stand for God or against Him. There is no half way or 
mixture of motives. On earth you can change back and 
forth. Here you either do His will with all your heart 
and soul and strength or you are deterrent. Now what 
I want you to do is the old thing of making your choice 
on earth — once for all decide to stand for God and give 
up divided motives. We who stand for God, when we 
know a thing is right, do it quickly. You must gain the 
same directness and decision. The chance is given to all 
human beings who live on earth to make their choice. 
There are individuals who never have that chance during 
their earthly life, but they belong to another class. I refer 
to defectives and a few isolated individuals, and I am not 
including them at present. I want you to get the Eternal 
point of view and do nothing which won't be an advantage 
to you when you, too, have passed through the change 
called death. You all try to keep away from smallpox 
and leprosy. The mental habits of indecision, the inability 
to make true acts of will, are responsible for more evils 



The One Way 63 

than you conceive. From my point of view now I would 
rather have suffered in my flesh all diseases rather than 
that of indecision. That has a spiritual significance com- 
pared with which no mere disease of the flesh is of any 
consequence because that is a soul disease. That is a 
result of, and also a cause of, diseased moral fibre. You 
can't greatly help us here in this great crisis unless you 
can get this clear, and act on it. God put you in your 
world„ He knows you have to work for food and raiment, 
but you don't have to do dishonest things in order to make 
extra money, so that you can buy finer clothes, and 
houses, and lands, than your neighbors. You want to 
give your children advantages. By all means, but make 
sure that you give them real and enduring advantages. 
Roughly speaking, in one hundred years every soul now 
on earth will be here with us, and they will leave their 
earthly possessions behind and stand bare of all surround- 
ings and will only possess what they are. You know that. 
Why do you, so many of you, ignore it? The first shall 
be last and the last first. It may be that the most de- 
spised of earth's creatures, one who had no chance to learn 
anything but evil, yet who had a little spark of love in his 
heart and made this choice for God and goodness at some 
time that was the determining chance of his life, will take 
precedence of men who have done many good acts yet 
whose first purpose was material advantages, not God's 
service. You can't deceive God and you can't deceive 
your own soul. If you, with honesty, look deep into your 
own heart you know whether you stand for God." 

(Am I being difficult to-day, or is it that the message is 
difficult?) 

"Both. You feel you know too much what I want to 
say and you don't at all. And also what I want to say is 



64 The One Way 

very hard to put in forcible language because you know 
it all already, but the world is not acting up to it. People 
have read so much and tried to use their puny intellects 
to solve questions that are too difficult for them to such 
an extent that they have become entirely befogged over 
those simple straight things, which if they would live 
them in their daily lives, would so advance the whole 
sum of human knowledge and experience that you could 
advance to subjects that are now beyond you." 

{Can you explain why recourse to familiar spirits is for- 
bidden in the Bible?) 

"Why, of course I can. The people tried to get direc- 
tions from spirits on points which they should have de- 
cided themselves, or gone direct to God for wisdom. If 
you learn consciously to receive thought messages and then 
start asking questions to satisfy your idle curiosity or to 
find out things you should find out for yourselves, you 
will be doing the same thing that was forbidden. You 
can't come to us to get our help on matters you ought to 
decide yourselves. That would weaken your moral fibre." 

{It seems very complicated to understand how we can help 
you if we are not to ask questions and advice?) 

"While it is just a problem on paper it may seem so, 
but when you begin to live it out in your life it will smooth 
out." 

{It seems to me that the thing that stands in the way of so 
many people is that they doubt an existence after death, or if 
they believe in it, it is so vague as to be negligible?) 

"Yes, that is the reason that we are being permitted to 
use this means of communication — because the love of the 
Father is so great that he permits us to meet the true and 
great desire of this time to bridge the chasm. It is not the 
only way, as you know from personal experience, but it is 



The One Way 65 

the only way that certain spiritually undeveloped people 
can get it, and it is permitted now. The thought messages 
are the best way. That is the reason why you are to make 
every effort to consciously learn how to receive and send 
them. For instance, you asked your husband what made 
the pain in your foot. [See Introduction, July 17th, 9.30 
P.M.J Now you consciously sought his help. He told you 
to turn to God who is the source of all health and healing. 
You obeyed and that enabled your husband to help you 
much more effectively than he could have done without 
your cooperation. He might have helped you, your 
mutual love forming a channel, but not as he did. You 
have your minds and you must use them. 

"We have gone very clearly into the matter of God's 
not forcing any one of His children to serve Him or to 
let Him into their lives and hearts unless they choose. In 
a lesser degree the same is true of us. We cannot force 
our help upon you. You must not on|y help yourselves 
but you must deserve our help and open yourselves to it, 
if we are to accomplish what we are desirous and able to 
accomplish for you. We have together one great barrier 
to break down — the world-wide idea of separation between 
our life here and your life there. A certain very real sep- 
aration there must always remain, but if you will help us, 
we can bridge it over in a marvelous degree. There is no 
death. There is life with you, a very embryo kind of life 
it looks to us from here, and with us there is the beginning 
of absolute perfection. You know in your own life that 
you cannot give to another person the advantage of your 
experience in any given line, unless they are willing to 
receive it. If they are headstrong and obstinate it is no 
use to try and help them, but given an individual, who is 
preparing to go through an experience which you have 



66 The One Way 

already had, who is ready to learn from you, you can help 
them enormously. You call that being open-minded. 
Now we want you to go a step, and a long step, further, 
and learn to be fluid-minded. That doesn't mean that 
you have got to be colorless, weak creatures. You not 
only may, but must, prove by living what we will give 
you, but your conservative-mindedness is no longer a vir- 
tue. You must get freedom and vision. 'Try the spirits' 
(I John 4-1) by all means, but don't refuse to listen to 
them, to give them a trial. If the Christian church had 
not almost completely forgotten the fact of the miracles 
of healing, performed by Christ, it would not have been 
necessary to form a whole new cult to bring to light the 
fact that God has lost none of the power that He once 
had. Christian Science has lost a very valuable some- 
thing, because it had to go outside the historic Church to 
proclaim the truth, which Christ taught and which has 
been kept alive in certain isolated cases through all the 
centuries. Don't make so sure that automatic writing is 
some fearful new invention of the devil, and so drive the 
truth which should be within the historic Church outside 
it. Men are so small-minded. Because a person or a book 
has some trait or part that is repugnant, or even distaste- 
ful to them, they condemn the whole thing as worthless 
or low. Now the Protestant world, horrified at an abuse 
of offering prayer to the saints, has for centuries forbidden 
prayer for the dead. Your dead are still far, very far from 
perfection, and they have to grow and develop in God's 
keeping. You cause your dear ones great pain by shutting 
them out of your lives, putting them utterly away from 
you. Your prayer to God for them helps keep you open 
and enables them to help you. If you went to a distant 
part of the earth to live, and your nearest and dearest 



The One Way 6y 

never wrote to you or sent you anything or came to see 
you, you would be not only intensely pained but it prob- 
ably would result in maiming you. You would probably 
become so bitter that your development would be par- 
tially arrested. It is somewhat the same thing that can 
happen here. This is very difficult to get over. The souls 
who come here are occasionally held back in their devel- 
opment by the pain of being shut out by those they love 
on earth, but that is rare and is partially because they 
are not spiritually developed enough to completely trust 
God, and is a temporary holding them back, but those 
who are left on earth, who mourn their dear ones here and 
yet wholly shut them out are often maimed. Suppose 
your dear ones have had much pain and suffering in their 
earthly life and you can rise to being glad that they are 
delivered from that, but can never cease to regret the joys 
of earth that they are losing, and never allow yourself to 
give up the idea that they would have been better off 
there. They on their side are longing to tell you of the 
unutterable joy and development that is theirs, longing 
to have you share first in imagination and spiritual under- 
standing, and then, when the time comes, in reality, that 
marvelous life that is theirs, and you are dragging them 
back to some lost pleasures of earth. If a woman had a 
son who had become a hero — a leader among leaders — 
and instead of rejoicing in his greatness and the develop- 
ment of his life and power, she was always wishing him 
back in the nursery, playing with tin trains and toy ships, 
you would judge her unfit to be the mother of such a man. 
You would say he never took his great qualities from her. 
You simply don't believe, 'That eye hath not seen nor ear 
heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the 
things that God hath prepared for them that love Him' 



68 The One Way 

(I Cor. 2-9). You marvel at the unutterable wonders of 
your tiny star. You want your dear ones to taste earthly 
love, travel, discovery, companionship. 'God is not a man 
that He should lie.' In countless ways He has taught you 
the truth of the future life. Behold a worm crawling on 
the ground, afraid to become a butterfly and soar above. 
Don't think I am calling you worms. I, too, am a man 
and the angels revere men. The man who can say truly, 
and mean it, 'Though He slay me yet will I trust Him,' is 
an object of the greatest reverence and honour to those 
who have always lived where faith is lost in sight. But 
if a worm refused to become a butterfly it would not be 
half so silly as thousands — nay, millions — of intelligent 
men and women who refuse to believe in the future life. 
'The last enemy that shall be overcome is death.' The 
first step in overcoming that last enemy is to believe in 
the life beyond — not to say you believe but to realize — to 
know that we who have passed over are ten thousand 
times more alive than we were on your side. 

"I must warn you once more of the tremendous danger 
of becoming fluid and open, unless you are absolutely clear 
that you mean to serve God and Him alone. You can 
protect yourselves utterly, but the chances of death are 
infinitely greater than in dealing with the worst and most 
death-dealing electrical machines, because it is not the 
death of the body you are in danger of, it's the crippling 
of your souls. Yet you can know absolutely what kind of 
spirits you are dealing with, far more certainly, if you take 
the proper training, than you can with living men and 
women, because on earth people's motives and purposes 
are so mixed that the man who is deterrent today may be 
strongly for God next time you meet him. Here, we either 
serve God or we don't." 



The One Way 69 

{Do I understand that a spirit who has been deterrent can 
turn and become God's servant?) 

"Why certainly! When they have finally worked their 
way through the remorse and wish to return, it is possible. 

"The most spiritually developed of those who are con- 
sciously doing automatic writing will tell you that they 
can tell at once when an interference occurs. If you are 
spiritually keen and absolutely set to do God's will and 
His will alone, you would detect the deterrent spirit far 
more quickly in automatic writing than over the telephone. 
Now you know quite well that the men or women who are 
very keenly developed spiritually detect instantly the sug- 
gestion of sin, no matter how subtle. Why then, when you 
have accepted that ages ago, is it so very difficult to think 
of practising the thought language consciously? You all 
of you practise it unconsciously continually. The way to 
cooperate with us is to begin to do consciously and intel- 
ligently that which you have done unconsciously, blindly. 
But don't let any one think it is purely or even chiefly an 
exercise of the intellect that I am asking you to learn. 
The intellect must play its part surely, but the instinctive 
or soul nature must be developed chiefly to this end. It is 
not that the instincts are greater than the intellect. But 
you have neglected the instincts so terribly that to bring 
your threefold nature up you must for a time concentrate 
upon the instinctive side of your nature. To try to put 
into human language the unutterable, the inexpressible, 
let me say, the mind of God, the heart of Christ and the 
soul of the Holy Spirit. Remember that can't be expressed 
in thought, can far less be put into words, yet it may give 
you the shadow of an idea. One of the greatest causes of 
unbelief today is the insistence of those who are now here 
who taught dogmatically, who tried to set down in words 



70 The One Way 

and doctrines the eternal verities of God which will take 
us all eternity to fully understand. But don't make the 
mistake of throwing over all doctrines. As long as the 
human race remains on earth they will have to try to find 
human words to express those inexpressible truths of God. 
As soon as you recognize the inability of the vehicle of 
words to carry the unutterable truths of God, you will 
begin to wonder at the marvelous attempts men have 
made to express the inexpressible. The more you develop 
and grow in spiritual understanding, the more Truth you 
will see behind the old dogmatic theological efforts of great 
men. Of course you will understand that here I am speak- 
ing of the great dogmas. When you begin to try and ex- 
press those dogmas in terms of life, always recognizing 
their partial character, you will find that there is an ex- 
traordinary amount of truth in them. Instead of cavilling 
at their narrowness, you will wonder at their nearness to 
the truth, at the amount of truth they were able to ex- 
press. You must utterly cut out from your mind the men- 
tal attitude, 'Believe this or be damned.' 

'"There is now no condemnation to them that love the 
Lord.' This is literally true, therefore learn to love God. 
You say, how shall I set about it? If you love a man you 
do something to please him. You give him a gift or you 
render him a service, and if he has done anything for you 
you thank him for it with all the courtesy and warmth of 
heart you possess. Form the habit of thanking God, talk 
to Him, demand His counsel, offer Him gifts of all you 
have, large, free gifts, and above all give Him yourself, 
your loyalty, your whole life, all that you are. Many a 
man has grown close to God through the above exercises. 
Why not you? It is far easier to be a friend of God's than 
to become the friend of the wealthy and powerful of your 



The One Way 71 

earth. God wants your love and friendship. He wants 
exactly such service and love rendered to Him as you 
would render to your friend. He wants you to prove Him 
by treating Him just as you would treat an earthly friend. 
Go to Him. Say, 'Why don't you help me? I want your 
counsel or your help. My father or my brother would 
help me in this undertaking (always provided it is in 
accordance with God's will and for His glory), why don't 
you?' When you want your father's help you don't sit 
and vaguely wish he would help. You go right to him 
with a proposition and you insist on his hearing your 
plans and helping you out. Do the same thing with God, 
and in a lesser degree do the same thing with those of us 
here whom you know you can trust. Enter into conscious 
partnership with us, demand of us, let us help you. But 
understand at the very beginning that we cannot, rather 
will not, help you when you ought to turn to God. Per- 
haps I am not making it clear. You go outdoors and see 
a glorious view, a beautiful day, and your heart expands 
and you feel it is glorious to be alive. Say, 'Father, I 
thank Thee for this glorious view. I thank Thee for all 
this beauty which you have given me. I thank Thee for 
so having made me that I am capable of enjoying it. 
Help me to enjoy it in Thee and with Thee.' As this habit 
becomes fixed you will find the beauty increased tenfold, 
just as you enjoy your day out of doors more with a con- 
genial companion than alone or with one whose mind and 
mood grates on you. Just in the same way, perhaps you 
have tried to be a man of your word, strictly honest, 
scrupulously true, because you think that the decent way 
to be. Now stop and say, 'I will be true because Thou 
art Truth.' God made you for His companion, and how 
long has the human race kept Him waiting for their com- 



72 The One Way 

panionshop? And so on through all your daily life and 
duties, do consciously with clear intention of love and 
service to Him what has been only for righteousness 
heretofore. 

"It took America years of European war to realize her 
duty and go in. Oh! I beseech you who were my former 
pupils, if you have found any finger pointing toward truth 
in my works, to listen now and realize the magnitude of 
the crisis. You don't have to give up your pleasures, your 
amusements, your exercise, but take God into them, let 
us in; clean your lives of double motives and double 
standards, believe in the truth of this book, believe in the 
reality of the life we lead. It is the most ridiculous thing 
from our point of view to think that you can doubt of our 
being alive, we who have infinitely greater powers of every 
kind than we had when we lived on your tiny star. Those 
of you who are really willing to carry on, learn to receive 
our written message as the writer of this book has learned. 
It is not a thing that only one person can do. You have 
to learn how. 

"When you get here you will find that your ignorance 
of the fact, that certain things could or should have been 
done, is no excuse, provided you could have learned the 
facts if you had tried. On the other hand, where no op- 
portunity of learning has been granted, the ignorance is 
a complete excuse. The people who read this book are 
likely to be of those to whom opportunity has been given, 
and there is no excuse for your not proving whether or no 
the thing I here tell you is or is not true. On earth you are 
so unnecessarily ignorant because you won't prove the 
things by living them." 



Chapter V 



THE whole state of ferment in the world today- 
is due to the fact that man has not taken 
the proper opportunities for progress. Have 
you never experienced in your own life, that if a thing 
was not accomplished at the right time that was as- 
signed to it, you never had another time for it except by 
making the time. It might be some trifle or it might be 
a big thing. It had its proper time and for some reason 
you failed to do it at its proper time — at times an unavoid- 
able interruption, at other times carelessness, laziness or 
sloth prevented the doing of it. It may be that you did 
accomplish it later, but you did it at greater cost of energy 
and labor and you had to push something aside in order 
to accomplish it. You are very fond, at this time, of the 
use of the expression 'the psychological moment.' I have 
spoken of what you of course know or should know that 
God has a plan for the whole human race. He did not 
create the universe and man on a haphazard. But the 
perversion of the royal prerogative of man, his free will, 
has fearfully upset and delayed the working out of God's 
plan. Over and over again the great psychological moment 
of a crisis in human history has come and gone by, without 
advantage being taken of it, sometimes deliberately by 
the plan of evil minded men, either in the flesh or out of 
it, and the retarding of the whole race has been enor- 
mously greater than would have seemed necessary, if one 
looked at that one incident alone. The history of man is 

73 



74 The One Way 

clearly a progress from lower to higher. Everyone of you 
knows that. The evolution that has been accomplished 
is far greater than many of you realize but what you often 
term the millennium is much nearer if you take advantage 
of the present crisis than any of you dream; yet you stand 
in fearful jeopardy of missing this psychological moment. 
Politics must be cleansed of personal motive. Try and 
make the nations realize that greatness, which everyone 
admires and respects in individual men, can be reproduced 
in national character just as well. Nations have a charac- 
ter, an individuality, just as much as single men. A great 
man with tremendous heart, mind and soul has his work, 
his especial capacities and duties, and if he is truly great 
he is not jealous of some other great man. Rather he re- 
joices in him. Imagine to yourself a city or town, where 
instead of one great man there were one hundred or one 
thousand men of towering personality and ability — each 
following out his own bent — or even two or three following 
out the same line; if they were truly great, they would 
not spend their time in petty jealousy, they would be too 
much absorbed in the advancement of the great cause 
they were following, and like the best grade of sportsman 
would cry, 'well done, good play,' when the next man 
excelled them. It is time for the nations to stop bickering 
and self seeking and above all to stop fear, — fear lest the 
next man shall grab some advantage that they want to 
secure for themselves. In a family one member is not all 
the time trying to outwit the next; rather each, though 
he be pursuing his own interest, has a due regard to and 
care for his brother, even, at times, causing his own inter- 
ests to be put aside and, at times, actually injured in order 
that his brothers may be served. That this spirit is abroad 
in the town, in the state, in the country and dominated 



The One Way 75 

all the allied nations for a time, is so well known that it 
seems laughable for me to be writing it out, but you, who 
rose to this greatness in a time which you recognized to 
be an overwhelming crisis, are slipping back into your old 
ways of thinking and acting. 

"What I touched on above, in regard to dogmas or theo- 
logical subjects, has a parallel here. Your legal language 
and legal codes have become so complicated that it is no 
wonder that you are afraid of binding yourselves by writ- 
ten legal documents. All lawyers know that a complete 
and perfect last will and testament can be drawn up in a 
few sentences provided they are simple enough. A league of 
nations is an absolute necessity, if you are to be the victors 
in the present crisis. Words are entangling. Just as an 
enormous amount of evil has resulted from trying to com- 
press the unspeakable eternal verities into a few words, 
so, to try to provide for all the future by a document that 
lays down now how you shall act in some future unforeseen 
contingency, is unwise. Yet, you must have a league of 
nations. Perhaps you will think now is a good chance for 
James to show his metal and write us a document, that is 
at once simple and comprehensive. Of course, I could 
write a better one than any living man, in your sense of 
that word, for we see values of things past, things present 
and to a certain extent of things to come; but to tell you 
how you should do what it is your place to work out for 
yourselves would be deterrent. St. Paul said: 'Look not 
every man on his own things but every man also on the 
things of others.' Phil. 2. 4." 

(Can I ask a question?) 

"Yes." 

(Suppose a person here had succeeded in learning the 
thought language so as to be able to receive thoughts con- 



76 The One Way 

sciously, could you teach him in his heart how to write such 
a document, and then he write it down of himself?) 

"Why there you are beating the devil around the bush 
as the old saying is. Neither I, nor any other man who is 
serving God, could go to a person on earth and tell them in 
their hearts what it would be deterrent to tell them 
through automatic writing." 

(/ know that God himself can help us by giving us his 
wisdom. But how can you help us?) 

"There are many ways that we can help you, many 
things that would not be deterrent to tell you, but it is 
very subtle and I do not think I had better try to ex- 
plain to you now, even if I could succeed in making 
you understand, of which I do not feel at all sure. 

"That was a digression — and even now, much as you 
and I have gained in working together, such a digression 
checks the ease and freedom of our work. 

"While we are on the subject of the inability of human 
language to express meaning, since it is and must long 
remain the chief mode of communication on earth, I want 
to say a little about it. Empty words are the most potent 
of all means of concealing truth, but a true word lived 
proved by Life, the Life that is of God, is powerful beyond 
any power of expression. The centurion said: 

" 'Say in a word and my servant shall be healed, for I 
also am a man set under authority, and I say to one come 
and he cometh . . . and to my servant do this and he 
doeth it/ (Luke 7, 7 and 8.) He knew a great truth, the 
word of truth spoken in earnest by a righteous man is 
all powerful. I have told you again and again that you 
could speak the word, 'I absolutely refuse to be interfered 
with by deterrent spirits' — and it is a complete protection, 
but remember never to say those words over as a charm, 



The One Way jj 

for then all their power goes from them and they become 
empty idle words. Your whole self must stand behind 
them just as the power of the Roman Empire stood behind 
the centurion. Read the first chapter of St. John's gospel, 
learn it by heart and repeat it to yourself a thousand 
times, always with prayer that God will give you the 
grace to understand the unsearchable mystery contained 
therein. Don't be afraid of that old Bible word ' the Grace 
of God.' You know it means power, a thing you all long 
to possess — and use. Why dabble with imitations? Why 
not use the power that moves the whole universe ? 

"And by the way, Mrs. B , what are you doing 

with that ice on your leg; is not God, the source of all 
health and healing, a better healer than ice?" 

(Can you tell me what word to speak?) 

"No, of course I won't because you know and I am 
utterly ashamed of you. You know better." 

(/ have tried to put it into his hands completely.) 

"Well it was a very poor grade of trying and has re- 
sulted in failure, as such quality of trying always will." 

(Don't get so cross and spiteful about it.) 

"I am neither cross or spiteful, but for a woman of 
your development to be laid up by a few bumble bees is 
enough to make me feel discouraged. If Christ opened 
the eyes of the blind and healed all manner of disease and 
you know he did it too, then why do you doubt his power 
of completely taking away the inflammation from a few 
bee stings? All I can say is I am ashamed of you." 

(Do you want me to publish that?) 

"I want you to do what is right and to do it now too." 1 

1 August 4th. "J , what is the matter?" 

( To-day my foot ached very much because I was badly stung by bees, and I 
put ice on it. Do you get that?) 
6 



78 The One Way 

(Interval.) 

"I am sorry I seemed unkind but you know you must 
give no deterrent spirit any opening." 

(It has been a real source of difficulty that for so long I 
have been unable to feel God's nearness in my body.) 

"You all depend far too much on feeling; ask for His 
presence, then know that he is there, and don't feel afraid 
to declare it. 'Before they call I will answer; while they 
are yet speaking I will hear.' (Isaiah 65. 24.) Mrs. 
B you must verify that quotation for you con- 
trolled the pencil. I think you have worked enough; 
go out now, God bless you." 

Aug. 5th, 1.30 p.m. "You are not yet in a state where 
you can expect to accomplish good work; go lie down and 
take in God's strength. Perhaps you'd better talk to your 
husband first a bit before we work." 

"J , Mr. James is right." 

(Later.) 

"That is better, you were simply impossible before. 

"You must work steadily and faithfully along all the 
lines of advancement now laid down. In philanthropy, in 

"Yes." 

{Mr. James suddenly upbraided me and said what was I doing thinking 
ice could help, and not depending solely on God. Do you get that?) 

"Yes, I do." 

{Sometimes people can't help themselves all alone, and I have tried 
to ask God to help me. If you were here it would be right for you 
to help me.) 

" J , I am helping you night and day. Don't you realize that 

the strain was very great and you cannot come out of it in a 
minute?" 

{Why did Mr. James feel so?) 

" I don't know; I think he knew you needed stimulating. Be honest, 
didn't it help ? " 

{Yes, it did.) 

" God will help you and I will give my little help too." 



The One Way 79 

all its branches, you must try to get rid of the red tape 
and get a spirit of love into the work.'* 

(/ think we know that as a desideratum. Give us some very 
practical instruction as to how to deal with the very good de- 
voted class of workers whose point of view is old-fashioned, 
who are hidebound by precedent, and who are obstinate, yet 
willing to give of themselves, their time, and their money 
according to their lights.) 

"Why suppose you are in a committee meeting and you 
wish to put in a wider vision, a greater understanding of 
the present need or outlook of the work you are dealing 
with and you are blocked by some good, worthy, devoted 
but blind person — that is what they are if their eyes are 
holden and they cannot get the needed vision. Pray for 
them, say silently 'William Smith, I command you to 
open your eyes and see with the eyes of Christ' — or 'Will- 
iam Smith, I command you to see as God sees'' — or 'Mary 
Jones, let the Christ nature in you, come out and see with 
the eyes of God.' But observe that you are not to say, 
'Mary Jones, Let the Christ nature in you come out and 
see this matter as I see it,' because you too may be mis- 
taken. When you are commanding Mary Jones, look out 
for the beam in your own eye. Say 'Mary Jones, I com- 
mand you to let the Christ nature in you come out and 
let us both ask God to let us see with his eyes.' You must 
get entirely and completely done with the spirit of forcing 
your neighbor to see the truth as you see it — let him get 
it from his angle and keep yourself fluid. That doesn't 
mean you are to be carried about by every wind of doc- 
trine; not at all. It means, don't be so set in your own 
opinion as to what is truth, that you can't hear God speak 
and direct your heart and mind to new aspects of his 
infinite truth. If Mary Jones has gone to the meeting in 



80 The One Way 

a fluid state of mind she will both hear you and obey. If 
she has gone down on her knees before she went to the 
meeting and said, 'Oh Father this is thy work — I am 
thy child — pour thy grace into my heart — show me what 
you want done and give me the strength and power to 
do it — give me ears attentive to your voice and a will 
wholly set to carry out your commands', you will have no 
trouble when you call upon her to let the Christ nature 
come out. If, on the other hand, she has gone there set 
as adamant to carry the whole thing her way, you will 
need a double measure of God's spirit to move her; but 
remember that in such a case you do not have to move 
her; you should be so open to God's power that, like the 
great water main, a flood is flowing through you. Keep it 
extremely clear in your mind that you are the conduit not 
the water. It is God who must deal with the adamant, 
set, self willed Mary Jones, but he does need you as the 
water pipe. Of course if he had chosen to make man after 
a wholly different plan he could have dispensed with the 
conduit, but he, being absolute perfection, does only the 
perfect way and he made man to be his companion, his 
fellow worker, to cooperate with him, and his perfect way 
for its perfect consummation must have man's cooperation. 
"Now in case any of you are ever like Mary Jones, ada- 
mant to force your own will upon others, let me here point 
out to you that even though your whole time and strength 
may be given to good works, if you do them in that spirit, 
you may easily, nay you most probably will, become 
deterrent. Now then, I think you can see how it is that 
we can help you if you let us consciously and how very 
hard it is for us to help if you refuse to let us in. I have 
tried to show you that vagueness and indecision are de- 
terrent states of mind, so to be vague about letting us 



The One Way 81 

help you or not, or thinKing you will wait until after you 
are dead before you try to understand the mysteries of 
the eternal verities of God, is deterrent. I can tell you 
right now that it will take you all eternity to wholly 
understand the eternal verities of God, but your under- 
standing will be horribly delayed if you haven't tried up 
to the limit of the opportunities which have been presented 
to you in your earthly career. Integrity of intention fol- 
lowed by sincerity of action are essential characteristics 
of heavenly mindedness. 

"The ways in which we can help you are beyond what 
it is possible for me to tell you now, but you hold the 
master key. You can keep out deterrent spirits as I 
have told you. You can keep us out by yourselves being 
deterrent and serving mixed motives. 'Ye cannot serve 
God and Mammon.' Also for us, you who are on earth 
and us here, to unite and work effectively for the bringing 
in of the kingdom of God upon earth, you have got to 
become open and clearly recognize us and our messages, 
both written and mental, and cooperate with us. During 
the war you laid aside differences and worked in the most 
remarkable harmony for a great end, and because you 
recognized a great danger. We want to help you to recog- 
nize a far greater peril and to help you to unite more and 
more completely. 

"It is of the greatest importance to cultivate the habit 
of emphasizing the points of agreement with your neigh- 
bors, rather than the points of differences, not to weaken 
either your position or his, but to try to eliminate the 
sense of friction which has unfortunately become so wide- 
spread." 



Chapter VI 



"^ ^ "T^HILE we are looking at the whole ques- 
\/\/ tion of how to meet this crisis, we must 
Y v face the fact that alone we shall surely 
fail, but God and one man are a host. God alone is 
omnipotent but he chooses to have the one man to use as 
his instrument — by his own choice he is unable to accom- 
plish the work without his instrument. No philosophy, 
no man, no book, no experience is truly valuable unless it 
lead you back to the one Source. In your political, your 
religious, your philanthropic, your social, finally and most 
of all in your personal life, get back to the One Source, 
the Almighty Father, the God who is love. If you are 
going to serve him you must learn to love more. Your 
daily task may be drudgery to you, you may long to get 
away and be free of it, and be employed where the talents 
you feel you possess can develop and shine — the remedy 
is to do the work you dislike, or even hate, for love. Seek 
God in it. Say, 'Father this is work I hate, if you are in 
it show me where you are — teach me how to do it for you 
and for you alone.' If the next time you think of it you 
still hate it and you are honest in wishing to learn to like 
it and to do it as a service to God — put it right up to him. 
'Now Father, I asked you to make me like it, to show me 
yourself in it; where are you?' Don't let God alone — 
badger him till he shows you himself. 'One thing have I 
desired of the Lord which I will require' (Psalm 27. 4. 
prayerbook version) — but remember you must be honest. 
You may think it not worth while, but do show a little 
82 



The One Way 83 

common sense; if you have got to do your work to earn 
your bread you might as well enjoy it as hate it, while you 
are doing it, even if that were all, but it's not all. You are 
all immortal souls, very temporarily inhabiting bodies, 
and the things you have failed to learn there, you will 
have to learn here. But remember, if through careless- 
ness or wilful neglect, you fail to learn in your earth life 
that which belongs to that part of your life, it will be 
enormously more difficult to make it up here than to have 
learned it at first. You have to fulfill your own destiny 
and though it may take you an eternity to accomplish it, 
yet you will fulfill it. The Protestant world, having been 
disgusted by a fearful abuse of the doctrine of purgatory, 
has imagined, taking for their authority isolated verses 
from the Bible, that your life on earth comprised all your 
capacity for growth, that what you are at death is all 
you can ever attain to, that there is no further chance. 
God is love and justice is a department or attribute of his 
love. That mental attitude referred to above is too silly 
to make it worth my while to spend any time refuting or 
discussing it. If purgatory means purging you'll get it 
all right. You have your work to do, no matter in what 
department of life it lies, and the work of each man is 
honorable if he chooses to make it so. If you can only 
get it firmly fixed in your hearts and minds that every 
man is an immortal son of God — every single one of them 
essential to God — the poor man and the rich man, the 
ignorant and the educated, the lowly endowed and the 
highly gifted, each one will begin to regard the other dif- 
ferently. You say we have been told all this for centuries 
but it doesn't hold water; it has been tried out, yes by 
individuals, but not by whole nations. There is not a 
Christian nation upon the earth; more shame to human- 



84 The One Way 

ity! There are some nations where a larger proportion of 
the men and women are truly Christians than in other 
nations, but it remains yet for you to make even one town 
of one thousand inhabitants where every man is in love 
with God. Now that is what your task is; to so train and 
teach every man woman and child that they shall truly 
love God and their fellow men. You must begin to prac- 
tise love everywhere and at all times. You see a little 
crying child with an ignorant cross mother twitching or 
slapping it and only making it naughtier. If you speak 
in your heart clearly, insistently, lovingly the words, 'Let 
the Christ nature in you come out' you will attain simply 
unbelievable results. Speak to the soul of the woman 
and the soul of the child; behind their ignorance, their 
vice, their foreignness, their dirt, lies the kernel of their 
being, the place where always a little atom of God their 
Father dwells. Water the seed, dig about it. My meta- 
phor is inadequate, poor, but see my meaning behind the 
words and begin to live it and your knowledge will soon 
grow so that it will outstrip all that I have attempted to 
tell you. What Anglo-Saxon is there among you who 
does not feel contempt for the Oriental caste system, but 
what about the beam in your own eye? Right here I 
would say, that the present feeling of the plainer poorer 
people against the rich is responsible for a tremendous 
proportion of the misunderstanding and class prejudice 
existing today. In the past the sins of the ruling class 
against those below them created that attitude, therefore 
the more privileged people will have to do much more 
than half the work of doing away with that feeling, but 
you will have to teach and work along those lines as never 
before in the history of man. 

"There is no department of your present life where you 



The One Way 85 

do not need to do missionary work. The spirit that goes 
out to correct the mistakes and wrongdoings of others is 
not a force for progress. The spirit which lays aside all 
personal aggrandisement and advancement and goes out 
to carry a great gift is wholly different. You are to go 
out into all departments of the life of man, to carry the 
knowledge of the love of God and of the absolute freedom 
wherewith Christ has made you free." 

{How do you know if the message you are giving me has 
gotten through? You cant read the words on the paper.) 

"No, I can't read the words on the paper, but I can 
read the ideas in your head and heart as clear as in a 
mirror. I know that it has gone through. 1 

"The one thing man needs today is the love of God, 
the knowledge of the reality and truth of religion. It will 
cleanse all departments of life. It will bring order out of 
chaos. Remember the Bolshevists have very able evil 
leaders, both in and out of the flesh, and those that are 
out of the flesh are absolutely united for the downfall of 
the whole human race, as they hope. It can never be; 
'the Lord reigns be the earth never so unquiet'; but the 
setback, the unutterable and completely unnecessary suf- 
fering, if they should be temporarily successful, is impos- 
sible to contemplate. You must wake mankind with a 
clarion cry everywhere. Among you are many men and 
women who are powerful forces for progress, for God, 
but who, because of some intellectual quibbles, doubts 
or the mistaken emphasis that has been put on theology, 
are standing outside organized religion. Theology is man's 
work; it had its work to do but don't put new wine in 
old bottles; forge ahead, see things in the large; don't 

1 If this is the method by which the book is dictated, it is not clear that 
the language and the style might widely differ from W. J.'s other writings ? 



86 The One Way 

squabble nor stop over little differences; let the next man 
do his way, don't try to force him into yours. If you have 
something to give him, bring him in by love not by force. 
" There are enormous numbers of people who would re- 
sent distinct interference from other persons on earth, 
who yet permit constant interference from disembodied 
spirits, and since it is the fact, you might just as well 
know it; but thoughts or tendencies that you credit to 
your human flesh would seem very different to you if they 
came from without. You might be willing to eat glutton- 
ously, if you felt it was only your own flesh that you were 
satisfying, but if you knew it was a definite interference 
of an evil disembodied spirit you might not choose to have 
them rule you. If the man next door came and proposed 
a scheme, whereby you and he could enrich yourselves at 
the expense of your other neighbors, you would perhaps 
feel ready to kick him out of the door, and yet if some 
disembodied neighbor makes such a suggestion, far more 
subtly than the first one, you very likely entertain the 
thought — consider it — reject it — think it over again — ac- 
cept the idea suggested to you of the benefit your scheme 
will bestow in improved convenience to the neighborhood. 
In the end, because of the habitual lack of clearness, of 
straight thinking, of singleness of heart, of which so much 
has been said, you may enter into and carry out a scheme 
utterly unworthy of your best self because you didn't see 
straight in the beginning and because you had no idea 
that a definite personality was presenting the idea. If you 
could once learn the fact that the thought language lies 
behind the babel tongues of the human race, and that all 
men can understand the thought language, you would 
begin to open your eyes to a great class of facts, to which 
you are now blinded. Many a man who would resent a 



The One Way 87 

Bolsheviki's suggestion, if he came to him openly, is en- 
tangled by the mixed motives suggested to him by a man 
whom he had supposed to be honorable and upright. If 
a living man can do this to you, I tell you that with the 
increased power of intellect of the disembodied Bolsheviki — ■ 
call him a devil straight out, and you won't be far wrong 
— your danger is fearful to contemplate. The remedy is 
clear, simplify your actions, your thinking, all your stand- 
ards. 'How,' you say, 'is it to be done?' I answer very 
simply; all you need is to get the eternal point of view. 
How is this thought or action going to check up in eter- 
nity — will it be entered on the debit or the credit side? 
Idol worship is not cut out from the so-called Christian 
nations. Men and women who would look with horror on 
a heathen whom they saw praying to an image of wood 
or stone, themselves worship the God of power, social or 
political, the God of gold, the God of material achievement 
and success, the God of influence or leadership, making 
their chosen God the end of all their effort. Behind the 
idea which has become a matter of worship to you, lies 
just that modicum of truth which has served to blind you. 
Social and political power are fine things if used to further 
the plan of God Almighty. Gold can do untold good, if 
used for God's glory and the service of mankind rather 
than for the aggrandisement of the possessor. Material 
achievement and success is an absolute necessity if man is 
to work out his own destiny which is God's plan; but you 
must have the one eternal point of view forever behind 
your whole life and thought, a background that gives 
meaning and the correct value to the entire picture. God 
having created each one of you, an essential unit in his 
scheme, you naturally want to find your place and fulfill 
your own destiny. Effort, a fair competition such as 



88 The One Way 

we see in the highest cleanest kind of athletics, is as 
natural to your human experience on earth as breath- 
ing. In the best athletics you penalize the man who 
descends to a dirty trick to accomplish his end. Get 
that spirit into all your life, business, politics, religion. 
The self made man could never have made himself if 
making himself had not been the background of his 
whole life and thought; just so we want you to realize 
that your whole human life is either a preparation for 
an infinitely fuller, more satisfying life, or an experi- 
ence of remorse that is indescribable suffering. I have 
spoken very clearly of the fact that you already have all 
the revelation that is necessary to your whole salvation, 
but many men are so mixed that our God, who is love, is 
ready to give you another help on the way. Automatic 
writing is as old as the earliest of inspired writers, whether 
they are poets or moralists, for under inspired writing is 
much that is not sacred; but at this time God is permitting 
man to recognize just what automatic writing is and how 
to use it. God loves you and longs to draw you to his 
heart — at the same time that he will never force you — 
and because of the greatness of the crisis that lies ahead 
he is permitting certain leaders to use this means of con- 
vincing hundreds and thousands of the reality of the life 
beyond your tiny star. The minute a man becomes abso- 
lutely convinced of eternal life and gets the adjustment 
of his point of view that enables him to see that life on 
earth is a preparation for that eternity, all his values 
change and fall each into its own place. It is of utmost 
importance that he should realize that eternal life is ruled 
by love, that justice is a part of love, and that the man 
who wilfully refuses to seek the light on earth, which it is 
his duty to seek there, must take the consequences. Note 



The One Way 89 

that I say wilfully refuses. Those to whom opportunity has 
been denied will have Divine justice directed by Divine love. 
"You will see that it is not merely Bolshevism, directed 
by men on earth, that you have to fight — for 'ye fight 
against principalities against powers against the rulers 
of the darkness of this world,' and you fight with your 
arms tied so long as you have divided motives in your- 
selves. If it were only possible to convince you of the 
unutterable importance of this crisis — to gain your un- 
divided allegiance to this cause, we could give you such 
a tremendous amount of assistance. Picture a loving 
father who has told his small son to do a certain thing and 
told him that unless he obeys, a given punishment will 
follow. The father knows that the child does not appre- 
ciate in the least the bitterness of the consequences of dis- 
obedience and longs to help his boy to obey — but since it 
would not be obedience if he forced him he can only sit 
silently by and try to draw him by his love — fatherly love, 
intelligent, tender and yearning against obstinacy, self 
will and ignorance. Imagine that same human father, 
separated from his son by the transition you call death 
with infinitely increased intelligence and power to love. 
Can you imagine the intensity of his yearning love, eager 
to save his son — no it is beyond your powers — yet I have 
only been describing the love of a human parent. There- 
fore I implore you to lay aside your doubts and prove the 
truth of these things I have been trying to get across to 
you. Experience is the most convincing of teachers. 
Those persons who have experienced conscious automatic 
writing are convinced — learn of them. The conscious 
interchange of thought between those in your realm and 
those in our realms will be convincing in a degree you 
cannot dream of. Beware of receiving thoughts either 
conscious or unconscious from deterrent spirits " 



Chapter VII 



""▼"N conclusion, the end, the beginning, all the ways 
and means, are One. There is Only One source, 
JL. One ending, One way of achievement. All is God. 
God is love. Love is wise, love is just, love is patient, love 
is untiring, love is ever ready, love is law, love is the 
greatest force in all the universe, the dynamic that can 
accomplish all things. I have just said that love is law. 
Now perhaps the reason for the most fearful failures of the 
present civilization of the human race, is that with you 
law is not love, for it is one of those things that should 
work both ways. Love is law, and law should be love. 
The present laws of man in the most civilized countries 
are made with the purpose of attaining the greatest justice 
for the greatest number, but justice being only a part of 
Divine love, justice alone is not enough. God's love is 
also law, and to make law only justice is to restrict law 
in a way that it should not be restricted. Another part of 
justice is retribution or punishment. Now there is noth- 
ing that is so utterly misunderstood by men today as 
punishment. The only object of punishment is to make 
the offender do better, and all vengeance should be cut 
out. The idea that God is vengeful is utterly false. It 
is one of those points where man has constructed a God 
out of his imagination and then taught his neighbors that 
God the Father, the Creator of the universe, the God who 
is love, is vengeful. It is utterly and entirely incompatible 
that Perfect Love should be vengeful. God is just. He 
is a God of law and He created his universe with perfect 
90 



The One Way 91 

laws which, if they had been kept, would have produced 
an unbroken harmony and progress. One of His funda- 
mental laws is that of cause and effect. Let man break 
God's laws, and just in proportion to the way that they 
are broken, will be the consequence or effect. This is the 
absolutely simple explanation of the existence of evil, of 
sin, disease and death. The caterpillar does not die when 
he goes into his chrysalis. Neither did God originally 
make man to pass through such a distressing and violent 
change as death, in many instances, has become. Man 
should fall peacefully asleep and presently pass into eter- 
nal life, having recognized beforehand that the end of his 
life on earth was coming soon and made his plans in an 
orderly manner. Every naturalist knows that the creature 
which changes from one form of life on your earth, visibly 
before your eyes, slows down its activities, as it were, 
appears to be heavy and preparing for a change, before it 
passes into the intermediate stage. There is no reason to 
suppose that the dragonfly grub feels any sickness or pain 
when he crawls from the bottom of the pond. That 
process for him is as natural a part of existence as breath- 
ing, seeking his food, or swimming. Even so it should be 
for man, as simple, and natural a part of existence, to pass 
from your sphere to ours as for him to pass from his 
mother's body into earthly life. The most fond and loving 
parent that ever existed, does not wish his child to remain 
unborn because the actual process of birth is attended 
with difficulty. Of course in an ideal state, it should not 
be attended with pain; effort and travail but not pain. 
Neither with man nor with beast should there be pain, if 
you all knew how to take in God's power as you should 
know how, and that is one of the things that you must 
study and learn. There is no need of physical pain. 



92 The One Way 

That is a very different statement from the one that is 
the source of so much controversy, namely, 'There is no 
pain/ Of travail, in the sense of extreme effort, yes, but 
who minds extreme effort for a desired end. 

"God being love, cannot have in Himself any quality 
that is contrary to love. Vengeance is not a part of love 
and never could be. All punishment should be an act of 
tender love and justice toward the offender. Such is the 
unhindered punishment of God. By that I mean such 
punishment as is meted out after the change you call 
death. While you live on earth you are free to do your 
own will. After you leave the earth your free will ceases 
in just this sense. If you have been deterrent and choose 
to remain so, you are deterrent and only deterrent until 
such time as you choose to turn and seek God and Him 
alone, but if you chose to serve God and Him alone before 
you left the earth (or such of you as may make that choice 
here), you no longer do anything but the will of God. 
Thy will be done upon earth as it is done in heaven. How 
is it done in heaven? With abounding joy, with absolute 
allegiance, with haste and fidelity. In the life of the 
blessed after death — I cannot once let that expression 
pass, it must each time be 'what you call death' — there 
is no divided purpose, there is no mixture of motives. 
You have to be either wholly good or wholly deterrent. A 
spirit who after coming to this sphere definitely chooses 
to be deterrent is capable of repentance, but it comes only 
through a suffering that is indescribable, unless the choice 
is made at once at the time of passing. You have heard 
often of deathbed repentances. That is nothing uncom- 
mon. That is to say, at the time of passing every soul 
has a renewed chance of choice. If at that time a man 
chooses to remain deterrent, the road back to God must 



The One Way 93 

be through great agony of remorse. What is known to 
you as a deathbed repentance is, thank God, very com- 
mon, only you see it but rarely because it generally hap- 
pens this side of the veil. Let no man think that a death- 
bed repentance, or one on this side of the veil, is a simple 
and easy method of squaring up accounts; that you can 
live a bad life and then repent at the end. What you call 
a deathbed repentance is always the direct consequence 
of former things. That is, suppose a man whose external 
visible life has been vicious and bad, repents at death. 
The true explanation of that is always that he never before 
had a chance of seeing things in their true values. Either 
environment or inheritance blinded him, and suddenly, 
just at the time of passing, he sees everything in its true 
value and gets his chance to choose. You will very likely 
think that you can cite cases that could not possibly come 
under this law, but that is because you judge with the 
judgment of men who look on the outside, not with the 
judgment of the Almighty Father who sees the whole. 
When every man sees the whole in its true value, he is 
capable of judging himself. He knows whether he is to 
be condemned or not. For that moment, he becomes as 
God to judge himself. He sees all things that appertain 
to his own life in true value and true proportion to each 
other, and there is given to him the capacity to judge 
himself. This is true in spite of the fact that our Lord 
says, 'All judgment is committed unto Me.' Even unto 
us here this is a mystery, but I think it is like this. The 
Christ nature in every child of man asserts itself at that 
time, and for the moment, the man judging himself is not 
himself alone but God dwelleth in him. This is so very 
difficult to express in human language that I must beg you 
to try and read it, not in the spirit of saying, 'I don't 



94 The One Way 

believe that/ or 'How dare he assert that,' but rather in 
the spirit of, 'Let me see if I can see any explanation of 
what he means behind the veil of his words.' 

"Man is an integral part of God. The life that is in 
you is God life. There is only one source of Life, God. 
Therefore say that the life that is in you is God life, or 
Himself. The love that is in you, to whatever degree it 
is developed, is God love. God is love. All love is of Him 
and is Him. You cannot love your mother, your wife, 
your child, your home, the beauties of nature or any other 
thing except the love of God be in you to some degree. 
All true loving, no matter how unworthy the object, is a 
little bit of God dwelling in you. God is wisdom. There- 
fore, all true wisdom is God's wisdom, and you cannot 
apprehend Truth, that which is Truth, without the wisdom 
of God being in you. Nothing can live anywhere in the 
universe apart from the life of God. By living, you are 
in contact with, and in a sense a part of Him. Yet He 
chose to create man an individual, and the individuality 
of man is sacred. You will never lose your individuality. 
You are a part of God the Father, and you can never reach 
the development which he designed for you, until you 
recognize this with your heart, your mind and your spirit, 
and translate it into life by living it. 

"The Buddhist doctrine of Nirvana or nothingness, is 
a perversion of this truth. Buddha had a realization of 
the all-pervasiveness of God, and because he had not the 
advantage of the unrestricted light, of 'the true Light 
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,' he 
got it crooked. He perceived that God is everywhere, 
that He is the end and the source, but his understanding 
was darkened and he beheld all the evil of earthly life, 
and being horrified at it he proclaimed that Nirvana or 



The One Way 95 

nothingness was the one end to be desired. There was 
just enough of the spirit of truth in his doctrine to have 
held and bound millions and millions of men to the doc- 
trine. The real truth is that you should empty your- 
selves of self, so that God may utterly fill you and live in 
you, ruling your hearts and minds and spirits, until you 
are so utterly united with Him that you live in Him and 
He in you, and you thus attain to your full individuality, 
a human soul wherein dwelleth the Almighty Father, the 
indwelling God. It is a kind of nothingness, because when 
you perceive God to be all in all — above all, beyond all, 
yet dwelling in all — you become to yourself nothing, and 
then, and only then, do you attain to your true self, which 
is an instrument, or vessel, wherewith God can express 
Himself, wherein He can dwell. 

"When I was talking to you about the philosophies old 
and new, I had not brought the thought which I am try- 
ing to express through this book to such development as 
enabled me to show you what I hope I have shown you 
now about the Buddhist doctrine of Nirvana. If those 
who go to bring to Buddhists the Light of the world — our 
Lord Jesus Christ who is one with the Father, very God 
of very God — would recognize the kernel of Eternal truth 
that underlies such a doctrine, utterly perverted though 
it be, the difficulties of converting the world would become 
as nothing. When you try to teach the truth to another, 
don't argue and refute his present belief, but show him, 
whenever it is possible, that his present opinion or belief 
is only a part of the larger truth. Don't for one minute 
believe that God Almighty, the perfect loving Father of 
mankind, has allowed millions and millions of His children 
to dwell in utter and complete ignorance of Himself. He 
has borne witness to Himself in their hearts, and the man 



96 The One Way 

who in utter ignorance prays to a God of wood or stone, 
but prays sincerely, receives an answer from 'the Father 
who seeth in secret.' That is one of the reasons why erro- 
neous teachings have had such power over the minds of 
men. That ignorant man who prays to a stone or wooden 
image is not for a minute to be condemned. He knows 
no better. He is simply following out the integral law of 
his nature. Man being the child of God, a part of God, 
needs to seek his Father, and the man who sincerely seeks, 
no matter what the depths of his ignorance may be, is 
justified and will be counted holy. It is the man who 
knows more and doesn't try to seek God who is to be 
condemned. He is wilfully neglecting. In many cases 
he has let his intellect get in his way until he is blind. 
Such a man must take the consequences of his wilful 
neglect. Search after truth, no matter how often it 
eludes you. 

"To return to the question of punishment: it is a 
matter so utterly mishandled in your present civilization, 
so needing reform, that I beg you to wholly revolutionize 
your methods and let it be done only in a spirit of love. 
In Christian lands, the way that prisons and reformatories 
are conducted is appalling. Get the general public more 
closely into touch with the matter. Help them to realize 
that the criminal is often a strong good man gone astray. 
Punishment should be consequence, but should be lovingly 
dealt out. You must at present have jails and prisons 
because you have among you many defectives, and from 
them spring practically all the great criminals. There are 
many who are defectives whom your authorities do not 
recognize as such. When you get more of God into your 
lives, your bodily as well as your spiritual health will 
improve and defectives will gradually disappear. Most 



The One Way 97 

wonderful work is started along these lines, but the one 
thing that will make it easy to carry out is to realize, ex- 
perience and live your oneness with God. Get all your 
power from Him. You live in houses with water-works, 
the merest baby can run and turn on the faucet and let 
loose a flood. Your grandparents had to pump and carry 
all the water and therefore used it more sparingly, and in 
earliest times water had to be fetched, often from great 
distances, and was consequently very sparingly used. In 
all the ages there have been, here and there, great souls 
who apprehended God and got near to Him and received 
from Him in no small measure the Water of Life. The time 
has come when the world at large should know how to 
attach themselves to the Source and receive the Water of 
Life freely. 'Whosoever drinketh of the water that I 
shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I 
shall give Him shall be in him a well of water springing up 
into everlasting Life/ (John 4.14.) You have got to 
learn how absolutely easy and simple it is to obtain this 
Water of Life, the unlimited strength and power of God 
in your lives. In every home and every heart, you must 
learn that there is nothing to do but an act as simple as 
turning the faucet. 

"Of all the good and joyous things of life you need not 
give up one. You must give up selfishness and greed, 
gluttony, lust, envy, hatred, malice. 

"There are many fearful questions to be met. There 
is but one solution to them all. The Almighty Father, the 
indwelling God, the King of Love, the Prince of Peace. 
It is just as practical as turning the spigot. The water is 
there but doesn't come out until you open the cock. 
There are many ways of taking in God's power — by prayer 
of all kinds, by study, by work, through love and service 



98 The One Way 

to others — but chiefest of all, at this time, I would recom- 
mend silent prayer. Down in the profound depths of the 
heart of every man is that centre where God dwells, and 
in order to experience the knowledge and joy of compan- 
ionship with Him, you have got to learn to be silent. ' Be 
still and know that I am God.' 46-10. Some will immedi- 
ately believe that it is a doctrine of quietism, but there is 
no exercise of the intellect so difficult, as that of keeping 
still without thoughts, and yet not being either sleepy or 
distrait, to be absolutely on the alert, yet utterly still, to 
empty your mind yet keep it clear and under perfect poise. 
'Lord, give me Samuel's ear to hear.' When a patient is 
too tense in muscle he must be taught how to relax his 
muscles. At first it is not easy. If he has gone a step 
farther and become nervously tense, it is still more difficult 
to teach him how to relax that nervous tension. In neither 
case must he be allowed to relax to that degree where he 
touches loss of power. He must lay down voluntarily the 
tension, and become free, but never allow that freedom to 
degenerate into loss of control. When disordered, the 
nerves are more difficult to control than the muscles, and 
the mind is far more difficult than either. But the man 
who has the most perfect mental poise and control can 
relax at will, voluntarily laying down mental effort, but 
he can also instantaneously resume mental effort. To 
relax over a game of any kind, or a detective story, or a 
play at the theatre, or a concert according to the individ- 
ual taste is easy, but to relax and listen to hear what God 
will say, while it is not hard after you have learned how, 
must in the present state of the race be cultivated, at first, 
assiduously. Then, when once attained, you can learn to 
hear the voice of God at all times. 

"The whole of life would become simplified if you could 



The One Way 99 

only learn to work in harmony. There is unlimited power 
at your command if you will only learn to use it. You 
have often heard of 'the music of the spheres,' and most 
of you have thought of it as a beautiful poetic expression. 
In reality it is the simple fact of the universe. The har- 
mony of those parts of the world that fulfill absolutely 
the will of God is perfect, and it actually produces spiritual 
sound and rhythm. The greatest musicians have caught 
a bit of the sound and given you an imitation. Now when 
any part of the universe wholly fulfills the will of God its 
spiritual or ethereal existence renders it visible to those of 
us who have passed from your sphere. 1 We can neither 
see nor touch those things that have neither spiritual nor 
ethereal existence. All material things are capable of 

1 August 2 1 st. (/ ivant to know can you see me?) 

"J , of course I cannot see you. I know how you have felt 

about the writing, it is not ever easy but you must not neglect your 
prayers or any of the ways you know of approaching to God. It is a 
dangerous thing because unless the receiver is careful they may want 
to put the writing in the place of spiritual approaches to God. You 
ought to be able to understand about my not seeing you. I can see, but 
not things that have no eternal existence. It is this way, I can see, but 
only those things which are eternal. I can see you, the real you, your 
spirit. Some human beings are so little developed spiritually that we 
cannot see them at all. We do perceive them but not by seeing." 

{Can you see the mountains and the sea?) 

"Why of course we can, because they are in one sense spiritual." 

{How are the mountains more spiritual than human flesh? God made 
both.) 

"Yes, But though the mountains will perish in the course of the ages 
they are fulfilling God's love and law. They are not resisting. The 
mountains have no free will. Men have free will and they have so far, 
in many cases, perverted themselves as to be all but invisible to us 
except their spirits, but not so the mountains and the sea and nature 
generally. You are just right, the trees and flowers and nature gen- 
erally, are living in harmony and fulfilling God's laws and in that con- 
sists their true beauty. They have not man's free will.' 

{What makes freaks of nature and deformities of plants or trees?) 

"I don't know." 



ioo The One Way 

ethereal existence. The well-known feeling so often ex- 
perienced on entering a great cathedral, of a sense of per- 
sonality beyond the beauty of its form, color or propor- 
tions is actual. That is its ethereal existence and is to 
the cathedral what the spirit is to man. 

"Man being the greatest of God's creatures was given 
dominion over the earth, and man's good or evil conduct 
can even affect the weather. That is, man is so powerful 
and is capable of such close relation to the Father, that if 
he is living greatly out of harmony with God, his lack of 
harmony can communicate itself to external conditions 
and produce discord such as great storms. It is like this, 
Divine rhythm is a medium, as it were, and along that 
medium Nature works, and when man works in harmony 
with the Divine rhythm there is no discord; but let man 
throw out a sufficient amount of discord, he may jar the 
rhythm, or project discord into it, which might produce 
storms. The fact that scientists know how to predict the 
weather does not alter this Truth. As you have no 
scientific proof of this it may make a great many people 
ready to distrust me and my book to put in such facts as 
these, but I can tell you that the scientists are going to 
get a good many surprises before they get through their 
experiences after death, and I don't mind giving them a 
little surprise now. I have spoken several times of our 
difficulty in using human language because so much that 
we would like to tell you is wholly beyond the power of 
human language to express. To those men, who during 
their earthly life, have experienced a very little of the per- 
fect rhythm of the universe it is so utterly delicious be- 
yond all other joys that they prize it as their highest 
possession. It can be felt through art, music, nature, and 
most of all through religion. If I might so express myselt. 



The One Way 101 

it is the mechanical means whereby your instinctive 
natures receive direction from God. Many men and 
women have experienced it in one line or another, but if 
you can learn how to open yourself to the experience at 
will and to recognize it with your mind and your spirit, 
there is no limit to what you and we can do together. Of 
course all telepathic experiences work along this line of 
rhythm. The man whose sensitive instinctive nature is 
so trained that, like the dumb creatures — beasts and birds 
— he can receive direct direction from his Heavenly Father 
and in each new emergency of life be shown how to act, 
has a lot of advantage over the man who must reason out 
in his own mind how to act in a situation which contains 
unknown factors. But the man who stands in the com- 
manding position is he who is trained, not only in his 
instinctive or soul nature, but whose intellect also takes 
its full part, working in just conjunction with both his 
soul and heart or will. 

"God is the Beginning, the Ending, the Way, the Means, 
the Source, the Prize, the Power. He is in all and through 
all and yet you can turn away from Him and live outside 
the rhythm of his love. He is always there but it is part 
of your right of free will to live out of harmony with the 
Divine rhythm if you choose to be deterrent. The simplest 
child can receive Him in his heart and be actuated by Him 
and feel the thrill of the rhythm of the universe, and the 
wisest and greatest must become like the simplest little 
child if they desire to be utterly united to Him, the all- 
wise, all-powerful, all-loving Heavenly Father. You all 
need more faith, but remember that faith is a result of 
obedience to God's law. So many people imagine that 
faith is a kind of heavenly talent bestowed upon one man 
and denied to another. Faith is a result. Any one can 



102 The One Way 

obtain it who will faithfully, honestly obey and prove the 
promises of God. We here, know of no other way to attain 
to faith, except through obedience, and I know that if you 
apply to those persons on earth who have attained to 
great faith they will tell you the same thing. God has 
made the promises and He never fails to keep His part. 
Our blessed Lord said, 'If ye, then being evil, know how 
to give good gifts unto your children, how much more 
shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them 
that ask Him/ (Luke xi-i 3 .) How many hundreds of men 
and women have for years and years of their lives been 
praying for the gift of God's holy spirit and yet feel that 
they have not greatly grown in their knowledge of God ? 
Why is this? Because they have feared to take God at 
His word and believe that he would stand up to His 
promise. True prayer in Christ's name must be in har- 
mony with the will of God. It is the Father's will to pour 
out His spirit upon you and make you absolutely one with 
Him. 'That they all may be one, as thou, Father art in 
me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us.' 
(John XVII. 21.) Therefore, that prayer for the spirit of 
God is perfect and is certain of its results if you will go 
one step further and believe when ye ask for things that 
ye have them. In the eleventh chapter of St. Mark's 
gospel (the 23 rd and 24th verses) our Lord speaks abso- 
lutely clearly about this. 'What things soever ye desire, 
when ye pray believe that ye receive them and ye shall 
have them.' When He said that, He knew what He was 
saying, and He meant just that, not something else. When 
you ask God to pour His spirit upon you, do not hesitate 
to declare with the most absolute conviction, The power 
and the presence ol the Almighty is upon me, anointing 
me and healing me, or instructing me or guiding me, but 



The One Way 103 

do not then jump up and immediately set about doing 
your own sweet will. After that stay still in absolute, 
profound stillness and silence and hear what God will say, 
feel the rhythm of the Divine power of God, be filled with 
the water of life. 

"I could go on forever reiterating the same things that 
have been told you through the ages. You know them all. 
I have nothing new to tell you, only to call on all who ever 
cared for me or my words to hear and heed what I say, to 
go back to all the sources of wisdom, strength and power, 
but most of all to the One Source and let us consciously 
act together for the good of the whole universe." 



THE END 



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